The Veteran Students
by SomeKindOfUsername
Summary: After a time dilated, hundred year summer fighting in a far off war, Harry returns to Hogwarts to kill Voldemort once and for all. Takes place during the Order of the Phoenix.
1. Prologue

**I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

 **Prologue**

* * *

It'd been two weeks since Harry had watched Cedric die and Voldemort return but the visions still hadn't left him, every time he went to sleep, closed his eyes, even when he was being forced to work as the Dursley's personal house-elf, the visions of death would return to him.

As of now he was aimlessly wandering the streets of Little Whinging, hoping against hope that he'd return to Privet Drive to find that his friends had written something more than 'we hope you're ok' in their latest letters.

He turned another corner and wandered into a local park, there was nothing much there, a large patch of grass, a lonely set of swings, a solitary tree. No one was around given the lateness of the hour so Harry sat on one of the swings and stared up at the stars, wishing he could just leave this planet and all its problems behind.

All of a sudden, Harry heard a crack next to him. In a moment, Harry sprang to his feet, drew his wand and pointed it towards the source of the sound only to see nothing there. Slowing his breathing, Harry slipped his wand away and tuned around only to be thrown to the ground in shock.

Standing behind him, stood three nine-foot tall figures with red skin; monstrously large teeth; fluttering purple wings; suits of black armour which looked like they were made of some kind of scales and glittering black spears which practically emanated magic, all three of which were pointed at him.

"Harry Potter?" demanded the centre one in a loud, cold voice.


	2. Chapter 1

**I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

* * *

Remus Lupin disapparated to the Dursley's house in Privet drive on the 11th of August, two weeks before the start of Harry's next year at Hogwarts. It had been a long summer, what with Voldemort returning, his work for the Order of the Phoenix and dealing with Sirius complaining about Harry being cooped up at the Dursley's but finally Dumbledore had given in and allowed the Order to retrieve him.

"Alohomora!" muttered Tonks, waving her wand at the front door which swung open. Tonks whispered "follow me" and moved into the house, as Moody was on Order business elsewhere she had the highest Auror rank of the Order members collecting Harry and was in charge of making sure everything went smoothly.

The group slowly made their way up the stairs to Harry's tiny bedroom and with another flick of her wand, Harry's lock clicked. Tonks gestured for Lupin to open the door as Harry knew him and wouldn't think he was a Death Eater, with a nod of his head, Lupin swung the door open and felt his jaw drop.

Opposite him stood a six foot tall man with messy, shoulder length black hair, a distinct lack of glasses and the kind of body most teenagers would die for. Lupin could see this because Harry was currently half naked and struggling to pull a pair of trousers on.

"You know, it's polite to knock… or say you're coming or not break in like a burglar or, well you get the idea. Oh and" Harry – now with his trousers firmly on although still topless – spun, pulled his wand from his bedside table and pointed it squarely in the centre of Lupin's face. "What creature sat in the corner the first time I visited Remus Lupin's office at Hogwarts?"

"Err… A Grindylow?" Harry nodded and waited expectantly, "oh, what is the form of your Patronus?"

"A stag, although that question's too easy." Harry spun on his heal and started equipping some kind of large bracelet on his left wrist and wand holster on his right.

"Err, what is that on your left wrist?" asked Lupin, in an attempt to make conversation.

Harry pulled a t-shirt on the turned to face Lupin, raising his left arm protectively. The front of the bracelet suddenly expanded to twenty times its original size, creating what looked like a circular metal shield. A moment later the metal expanded turning it into a large rectangular Roman shield which promptly vanished, allowing Harry to reach for what looked like a Nundu leather jacket.

"Why do you have a shie-" started Lupin before being interrupted,

"What are those?" asked Tonks, pointing to a pair of black knickers lying by the bed.

"I have a shield because I can't dodge every curse," stated Harry, casually kicking the knickers under the bed, "it's got more protective charms on it than Hogwarts and can deflect anything a Death Eater can throw at me, as for what those are, guess. And you are?"

"Oh, allow me to introduce Nymph-" started Lupin.

"Don't call me Nymphadora" demanded Tonks, glaring at Lupin who felt himself wanting to curl up into a ball and hide.

"Tonks," he corrected, "Kingsley Shacklebolt, Elphias Doge, Dedalus Diggle, Emmeline Vance, Sturgis Podmore and Hestia Jones"

"Nice to meet you" said Harry absentmindedly whilst pouring books into a magically expanded backpack, "I assume you're here to take me away?"

"Yes, if that's all right with you" answered Lupin diplomatically.

"Dedalus Diggle, in what year did you bow to me in a shop?" asked Harry, not bothering to point his wand at the man.

"You remember!" said Diggle cheerily, "em, 88 I think"

"Correct, of course the fact you are Dedalus Diggle doesn't necessarily mean you're not here to kill me but if you and Lupin are who you say you are you're probably not leading me into a trap." Harry finished packing his bag, swung it onto his bck, slotted his wand into his holster and stated he was ready to go.

"We'll be going to the headquarters of… well we can't talk about it here, via brooms. So if you could grab your Firebolt" asked Lupin.

Nodding, Harry touched a hand to his backpack, muttering "Firebolt" and his broom shot out the top of the backpack and into his left hand, "lead the way."

* * *

Harry wandered down the stairs internally smiling at the shock of the Order members given his new appearance. They led him to the front of the house where everyone mounted up and Tonks started leading them towards Islington, very occasionally doubling back to ensure they weren't being followed which of course they weren't.

Flying like this, through the wind over London with the knowledge he wasn't about to be attacked by an army from the scourge or an army who thought he was the scourge or a having to fly through an orbital bombardment or through an anti-flying ward forcing him to use the parachute built into his backpack or any number of other insane scenarios he'd been through in the last hundred years, filled Harry with a sort of intense joy which almost made up for the knowledge that he'd spend the next two weeks cooped up and unable to leave for the muggle world apart from by sneaking out at night.

Not long after, the group descended and landed on a street of grimy, uninviting houses with broken windows and peeling paint. "Read this" commanded Lupin, passing Harry a slip of parchment: _The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London._

"You only have a Fidelius?" asked Harry, disbelievingly, "if Riddle found out the street where it is he could just launch Fiendfyre at the place and fire can't be fooled by illusions"

"I… well, good thinking, I guess. I'll pass that on to Dumbledore" said Lupin in a bewildered voice before leading Harry towards the building.

Pushing the door open, Harry observed the building with keen eyes. A moment later Tonks knocked over an umbrella stand and shrieks filled the corridor as a portrait came to life and started screaming.

When no one did anything but try to rip the curtains shut, Harry yelled "WHY DON'T YOU USE A SILENCING CHARM ON IT?"

"THEY DON'T WORK, SHE USED SOME KIND OF CURSE ON THE PORTRAIT" yelled back Lupin, tugging at the curtains around the thing.

"YES BUT AROUND IT"

"Err, SILENCIO!" the shrieking immediately ceased.

"I… err, don't know why we didn't try that" stated Lupin, going slightly pink.

"Well while you're at it you could always try actually putting defences in here. If a Death Eater did get through the fidelius there's nothing to stop them marching straight into the house"

"Yes but it's impossible to get past the fidelius" stated Lupin, confidently this time.

"Really because you haven't burned the parchment declaring its location yet" said Harry, raising the parchment into the light. Lupin immediately snatched it from his hand and burned it with a jet of fire from his wand.

"Harry" called Molly Weasley pulling Harry into a bone-crushing hug, "good to see you, you'll be wanting dinner but I'm afraid you'll have to wait until after the meeting" she turned, facing the others and urgently whispered "He's just arrived, the meeting's started." Turning back to Harry she continued, "I'll show you to your room, Ron and Hermione are there"

Mrs Weasley led Harry up through the dark house and to a bedroom, Harry opened the door and Hermione rushed towards him, only to freeze in place at his appearance. "Harry, you look… different"

"Correct" stated Harry, casually drawing a chair and sitting on it as Mrs Weasley left the room. "So… too busy to write?"

"Mate" started Ron, staring at Harry apologetically, "we wanted to write but Dumbledore made us promise not to"

"Dumbledore made you promise not to" repeated Harry, "and why exactly did he order this?"

"He thought the owl might get intercepted" replied Hermione, a look of almost fear on her face.

"Oh no, the Death Eaters might know WHY you're not sending me any information, I agree with Dumbledore on not letting you give me TACTICAL information but that doesn't stop you sending me anything but a glorified 'hope to see you out of that hellhole soon'"

"We tried to get Dumbledore to let you come over but" started Hermione.

"But that's Dumbledore's fault, not yours. Regardless, my summer was eventful enough that I didn't spend the whole thing in my room, making no noise and pretending I didn't exist. Now FRED, GEORGE!"

There were two loud cracks as the Weasley twins appeared in front of Harry, "yes Harry" they both said in unison as Ginny appeared at the door.

"Heard anything interesting"

"No" said Fred, looking annoyed and collapsing into a chair, "Mum's put an Imperturbable Charm on the door"

"They've got protective charms against the children but not the Death Eaters, just goes to prove how ill equipped they are to fight a war I suppose" Harry sighed and wandered to his bed, collapsing onto it. "So, what've you lot been doing over the summer?"

"Mostly cleaning" replied Hermione, "we haven't been to-"

"Yes, you haven't been told anything, anything else?"

"Not really"

"Perfect," Harry rolled his eyes and pulled a book from his backpack. Ten minutes of silence but for the Weasleys playing a game of exploding snap later, Harry closed the book and announced, "the meeting's over, your mum'll be here in a minute"

Everyone looked at Harry strangely as he stored his book in his bag, climbed to his feet and moved to the door but never the less, it swung open the moment Harry reached it and Mrs Weasley came through saying "time for dinner"

Harry casually followed her to the kitchen where he just managed to catch sight of the blueprints to a building before the table was completely cleared away and Harry took his seat

"So" started a grinning Sirius the moment Harry sat down, "what's this I hear from Remus about a pair on black knickers on your bedroom floor?"

The room fell silent as if there'd been a gunshot as everyone turned to stare at Harry, Mrs Weasley turning white, Ron red, Ginny blue, the Weasley twins growing matching grins and Hermione looking slightly shocked. "Well, why don't I put it like this, there's a reason you're supposed to tell someone before you come barging into their house. If you hadn't been so cautious coming in, well, things might've been a little more embarrassing. The same goes for if I didn't have a window"

There was an awkward silence before Fred and George simultaneously asked "who?"

"Just a girl or two, I know they weren't Death Eaters if that's what you're asking"

"TWO?" demanded Fred, George and Sirius, all grinning and practically bouncing off their chairs whilst Hermione, Ginny and Mrs Weasley demanded the same with accusatory expressions.

"How about we put it like this, I'll tell you as much about my sex life as you tell me about what's going on with Riddle."

Harry almost laughed at the reaction to that, Sirius seemed overjoyed – given he probably wanted to tell Harry everything regardless – Mrs Weasley looked very angry, the Weasley children were all looking at Mrs Weasley expectantly and Hermione was still looking disapprovingly at Harry.

"Well, I think we should eat before making any rash decisions" said Mrs Weasley, glaring at the boyish excitement on Sirius' face.

Dinner seemed rather subdued, most likely due to Harry's revelations and all too soon, they'd finished and everyone was waiting for someone to start talking. After a few moments, Harry broke the silence.

"So Sirius, what's Riddle been doing?" After some initial resistance from Mrs Weasley, Harry got some answers. Voldemort had been recruiting supporters and trying to steal something, in the meantime the order had been doing the same but protecting whatever Voldemort was trying to steal.

After Harry extracted all he could from the Order, Sirius turned on Harry. "So Harry, open up, what exactly have you been doing this summer with TWO women?"

"Well, I met said women over the summer and we started dating, that is to say I dated both of them and both of them dated me and the other one, both of them being bi. I've also become more physically fit, learned military tactics, fixed my eyesight," admittedly that was pretty much a lie but they wouldn't react well to the truth "and joined Sirius and Bill in the cool hair club. Given how little you told me about Riddle, that's all I can say"

Harry waited for a moment to see if anyone would reveal any more information then got to his feet and left the room, practically feeling the explosion of conversation after crossing the threshold where he was joined by Hermione and all the Weasley children.

As Harry entered his and Ron's room with Ron, Hermione and Ginny, Harry wandered over to his bag and started pulling out parchment and a quill. Looking up to walk to the desk he saw Hermione glaring at Harry expectantly while Ron and Ginny sat on Ron's bed, pretending not to care.

Harry sat at a desk and said "what is it you want to know Hermione. I've told you all I'm going to and far more than you three told me over the summer" while scribbling onto a piece of parchment with a dimly glowing quill.

"Ok" replied Hermione, meekly before casually asking "who are you writing to?"

"Guess" muttered Harry, standing and moving to find an envelope. As he walked Hermione shifted herself to sneak a glance at the parchment which read:

 _29138076188987830749091479339_

 _72277524793428943700458957778501842559132295772748  
12512709753224318791811303075241170829474290  
11799750738613696986970298883694946479932583  
143113999058612141966400725450980_

 _85252267321866515509423  
277015785_

"Bu- what is that?" demanded Hermione, staring at the collection of numbers.

"That, Hermione, is how you send letters to people without risking them being read" Harry folded the letter and put it in an envelope which he addressed _63bs__ , strapped to Hedwig and – after whispering something to Hedwig – sent off into the night.

"But Harry, what if the Death Eaters decoded it" scolded Hermione.

"They won't. Muggle decoders, sure but Death Eaters, no way. Even if they did it doesn't have anything of tactical importance in it."

"But you-know-who was Muggle raised and they might take it to a decoder" argued Hermione defiantly.

"The Death Eaters would never accept a muggle being able to do something they can't and even if they did, they wouldn't know where to start getting a decoder. As for Riddle, his primary school education in the muggle world won't have taught him how decode it. I mean it's not difficult to decode but no wizard is ever going to think of it"

"You've been calling him Riddle all day, why?"

"Three reasons, firstly, Voldemort is the name HE wants us to use. He chose it and even if he prefers us to be too scared to say it, he'd far prefer it to Riddle. I'd call him Tom if I didn't think people might get confused with which Tom I'm talking about. Secondly, if he gets enough power he might cast another Taboo curse. Basically a charm which tells him when and where people say Voldemort as only serious anti-Voldemort types have the balls to say it. He used it in the first war and that's why people were so scared of saying it. But he can't Taboo Riddle, well he can but it'd flare up every time a muggle said Riddle so would be completely useless. Finally, it's French for flight from death – that's why his Death Eaters are called Death Eaters, they protect him from it – so it'd get confusing around French speaking people"

There was a few moments of stunned silence during which Harry casually unpacked his bag before he broke it saying "your Mum's finished trying to work out what kind of phobic she needs to be to hate my relationship. She'll be up and telling you lot to go to bed in a minute."

This time believing Harry, Fred and George vanished with a crack whilst Hermione and Ginny snuck out the door. Once they were both gone, Harry stripped off and pulled on a pair of magically shielded pajamas before casting his usual protective charms on the door, window and around the walls. He left his shield and wand holster on.

"Harry, mate?" asked Ron, who'd been lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, since Ginny left. "Was all of that true?"

Harry climbed under his own covers – after first checking there were no 30 eyed tentacle monsters, gigantic snakes, deadly hornet nests, nuclear bombs or any of the other things he'd found in his various beds during the war, thankfully there weren't. "I don't think I've told a real lie since I got here but yes, I was shagging a pair of girls when the Order rudely decided to break into my house."

Ron grunted then lay silently awake for a few minutes before falling asleep. Once Ron's snores filled the room, Harry pulled out a book and started scanning through it, making notes as he did. What with the enhancements on his body he didn't need more than a few hours sleep a night and could go a week without sleep if necessary. He could sleep longer but to do so would be to throw years of his life away and regardless of just how long his life already was, he didn't want to waste time.


	3. Chapter 2

**I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

* * *

Harry spent several hours reading but went to sleep early, at 11pm, then spent three hours asleep before waking at the ding of a magical alarm as it reached 2am. Immediately Harry climbed out of bed, wide awake, and started dressing in the last day's clothes: a magically warded t-shirt, a jacket and trousers made of Nundu leather and dragon hide boots.

Finishing with a glamour to turn his hair red and modify his face, Harry checked the parchment with the location of Grimmauld place written on it was still in his pocket – Harry'd duplicated it while walking in and given Lupin the fake to burn – walked to the window, opened it and jumped out, transforming into a falcon as he did.

After a few minutes freely flying, then a few more trying to work out where the hell he was landing, Harry flew down and landed in a tree by a park. Harry let out a single squawk and a hummingbird flew over, followed by a Lemur which thankfully – given how early it was – wasn't spotted by any muggles.

Harry dove off of the tree and transformed back into himself, turning to see the Lemur transform into Luna Lovegood and the Hummingbird into Lily Moon.

"Hey Harry" called Lily whilst Luna embraced him. Hugging Luna with one arm, Harry pulled out the piece of parchment with the location of Grimmauld Place on it and showed it to the girls who both nodded. Harry muttered "Incendio!" and his palm caught fire, destroying the parchment.

"So, how's Grimmauld Place?" asked Lily, bounding over and pulling Harry and Luna into a hug.

"It belonged to the Black family, they decorate the place with decapitated house-elf heads and the kids've spent the entire summer trying to clean the place"

"Like Caldroon?" asked Luna sadly.

Harry shivered at the memory of the bloodstained castle Megan had been locked in, under the rule of a being so cruel it was known as the Butcher King, even its own soldiers were scared to be in the same room as it lest one of its tendrils ensnare them and blast them with a torture charm three times as bad as a Cruciatus curse. "Well the heads weren't on spikes and the place is smaller but I wouldn't be surprised to see the bastard there"

"The real question is whether you have your own room" interjected Lily with a smirk.

"No, I'm sharing with Ron, although you could probably blow up the whole house and it wouldn't be loud enough to wake him but in all seriousness, you should probably stay out of the house."

"But I could come in as a Hummingbird" suggested Lily happily.

"What about me?" asked Luna in an exaggerated, childlike voice.

"I can sneak out often enough" reassured Harry, "they won't want me to but, honestly, what can they do? So we can meet often enough"

"You should probably use a letter code on your messages, I doubt any Death Eater would guess that your letters were turned from base 63 to 10 but they'd know it was number based, besides, you can write more in less if you use 27 to 53 with a lowercase, space, uppercase number set. Might as well switch the cases after that just in case. That way, no Arithmancer will even start to consider switching bases as they use weird runes or ancient number systems to make bases over 10, they'll just think it's a letter cypher"

"Fine" agreed Harry, drawing his quill and modifying the encoding spells on it. He pulled a piece of parchment and wrote _To Lily and Luna_ on it, which became _to lily and luna_ then _clEIIYC aEBrZG_ and finally _CLeiiyc AebRzg_. Harry then touched his wand to the quill and moved it to the paper turning the letters back to _to lily and luna_.

"So, what now?" asked Luna.

"I think I have to stay at Grimmauld Place for the next two weeks, tell Neville and Megan not to kill anyone while we're away"

"They're not going to like that" said Lily with an evil grin, "they're already debating the best way to assassinate Riddle and Megan's suggesting we butcher people we know are Death Eaters until he's forced to break his remaining ones out of Azkaban, then leave a nuke attached to Bellatrix's cell door"

"That sounds like her" said Harry, running his hand through his hair and narrowly avoiding the flower Luna was attaching to it, "but that'd kill dozens guilty of nothing more that petty theft or pranks on muggles not to mention the Aurors on guard. Regardless, I'm pretty sure that his diary was a Horcrux so we've got to deal with them first"

"Do you know where they are?"

"Not yet but I'll be able to work it out if I can get my hands on one. If only Saurq hadn't gotten rid of the one in my scar," Harry sighed and checked his watch, 3:40. "I guess I should get back, from what I got out of Sirius, Mad-Eye will be back from guarding something – probably a prophecy or some kind of research on the magic which stopped Riddle from killing me – at four and if he comes back to Grimmauld place, he might use that damn eye to check if I'm in bed. We're lucky he didn't come to pick me up or he might've caught us with it."

"You say that when you've got two of the exact same magical eyes, only, slightly more convincing" chided Lily.

"Yeah, well, my eyes don't inconvenience me, his on the other hand… Well anyway, he won't be here tomorrow so we could always see each other then"

"Only see?" asked Luna, pouting whilst plucking another flower and intertwining it with the first one.

"Well, send us a letter tomorrow. See you" Lily leaned forwards and kissed Harry on the cheek before disapparating.

"Bye," said Luna, doing the same.

After they were both gone, Harry sighed, lightly grinned then hurled himself into the air, transforming into a falcon and flying back to Grimmauld Place.

* * *

The next week was relatively dull, other than Harry finding and pocketing one of Voldemort's Horcruxes as well as the times he slipped out as a falcon which, thankfully, the Order didn't notice. It wasn't until three days before term started that letters from Hogwarts finally arrived.

"Harry!" called Hermione, rushing into his room where he was reading a copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art – which, of course, had two dozen charms on to stop people working out what he was reading – to see if it had any information that could help him find Voldemort's Horcruxes. As the author didn't expect anyone to make more than one, there was nothing on using one to find the others but some elements of the ritual gave Harry ideas about how Horcruxes worked and therefore how to find them with the locket.

"Yes Hermione?" asked Harry, calmly lowering his book and looking up at her.

"Hogwarts letters!" called Hermione, practically pulling Harry towards the door. Harry carefully put his book away and wandered down to the kitchen where everyone was sorting through letters. Taking a seat at the head of the table, Harry picked up his letter and unfolded it:

 _As well as all previously required supplies, fifth year students will require:_

 _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5 by Miranda Goshawk_

 _The Dark Arts Outsmarted by Quentin Trimble_

 _Self-Defensive Spellwork by Arsenius Jigger_

 _Operating Behind Enemy Lines by Harry Potter_

 _The Use of Mind Magic in Combat by Lily Moon and Megan Jones_

 _A Guide to Advanced Duelling by Filius Flitwick_

 _Defensive Household Magic by Xenophilius and Luna Lovegood_

 _The Art of War by Sun Tzu_

 _Modern Magical History by Cantankerus Nott_

"Fuck" muttered Harry, reading his own name.

"I'm a prefect!" called Hermione, excitedly staring at her _P_ badge.

"Congrat-" started Mrs Weasley before the Weasley twins interrupted her.

"Since when were you a published author?" asked both Fred and George simultaneously, staring at Harry.

"Err-"

"Who's a published author?" asked Mrs Weasley, looking to the adults at the end of the table.

"Harry"

"HARRY?"

"Fuckin' perfect" muttered Harry under his voice whilst everyone turned to stare at him. "Ok, yes, I wrote a few books over the summer"

"A few?" demanded Hermione.

"Luna wrote a textbook?" demanded Ginny.

"I'm a prefect" declared Ron.

"Who's Luna" asked Fred,

"Ron that's brilliant" called Mrs Weasley, rushing over to him.

"I've only published one" replied Harry,

"Ron's a prefect?" demanded George, sounding horrified.

"QUIET!" shouted Sirius over the noise, bringing the room to silence. "First, Harry, you're an author?"

"Yes" answered Harry awkwardly, decidedly not looking forwards to having the entire year read his work.

"When, how, what about, how many?"

"Err, this summer, with a quill, about combat magic and only one's complete"

Sirius took a moment to digest the information before turning to Ginny, "Ginny, who's published what now?"

"Luna, she's a girl in my year who's sort of… mad. It says her and a man named Xenophilius have written one of our defence books"

"Xenophilius Lovegood?" asked Mr Weasley, "the one who writes the Quibbler? He wrote a defence book?"

"That's what it says" answered Ginny.

"I've been meaning to bring that up" started Bill, "I read the Quibbler from time to time, especially since the Daily Prophet lost all credibility and recently it's started putting out, odd stories. Not only are most of its imaginary creatures now in space but it published a story on Sirius which got, like, the whole thing right."

"Well… that's odd" said Sirius, a moment later he turned to Ron and Hermione, "right Ron and Hermione are the Gryffindor prefects"

"Why not Harry?" demanded Fred and George, glaring at Harry like his not being a prefect was corrupting their brother.

"Don't ask me, McGonagall chooses the prefects"

"A lot of people are going to be angry about you and the Lovegoods having written the defence books" muttered Bill aloud.

"A lot of people are going to be angry about Nott having written the defence book, I mean didn't he write the Pure-Blood Directory" pointed out Harry, trying to move the subject from his book.

"It's widely believed he wrote it, we don't know for sure… But yeah, he almost certainly did," replied Bill, "but let's not get off the subject, what exactly is your book about Harry?"

Everyone went quiet and stared at Harry, who sighed and said "It's about how to operate, behind enemy lines… Ok, fine, I'll get a copy"

Harry rushed out of the room and up the stairs where he quickly scribbled a note to Luna and Lily, both of whom were staying at Luna's house, saying _CIuJUfevnyfYTVOqmROYNXmb_ or _what's up with the book lists_ , then grabbed a copy of Operating Behind Enemy Lines and rushed downstairs to where the Weasleys were promising to give Ron a broom and Hermione was discussing having 'The Art of War' on the booklists despite it being a muggle book sswith Hestia Jones – the only other muggleborn.

The moment Harry crossed the threshold, Sirius plucked the book from his hands and started reading it aloud to the room whilst stoically Harry sat in the corner.

"Disclaimer: I do not endorse the use of illegal charms, hexes, jinxes, curses or any other form of illegal spell or action. Any time that this book appears to suggest the use of illegal methods it is doing so in a scenario where the laws prohibiting the aforementioned methods have been temporarily or permanently removed, therefore making the actions legal. That seems a bit excessive given how dark arts books are normally legal but I guess it makes sense given the Ministry's campaign against you"

"Published by Luca Books. Copyright © 1995, by Harry Potter."

"Luca Books?" asked Hermione, "didn't they publish The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts by Arsenius Jigger?"

"How do you even" started Ron.

"We had it in third year Ron" snapped Hermione, "but they're a worldwide publishing company, how did you-"

"Have you considered that my book might just be really good, Hermione? I went to them because Fudge would strike down any exclusively British Company printing anything I'd written. I sent the book to the Australian and American branches of Luca books so unbiased experts would read it, they decided that it was a damn good book and so it's being printed around the world."

"The publishers and author would like to remind all news outlets that this book is protected by all standard libel laws and will sue if said laws are breached with respect to this book," continued Sirius, over the conversation before pausing and staring at Harry.

"Harry?" asked Sirius in an overly calm and serious voice while staring down at the contents, "may I ask exactly what chapters five, eight and twelve are about?"

"Mind altering magic, military heists and assassination"

"ASSASSINATION?" demanded half of the room in one discordant shout.

"WHAT DID DUMBLEDORE DO TO GRINDELWALD?" demanded Harry, "sure, he didn't kill Grindelwald but he almost did. Their fight wasn't Dumbledore defeating Grindelwald's entire army to get to him then beating him in fair combat. Regardless of the final result, it was an assassination attempt. That's how war works! If you can cut the head off the snake you can eliminate the entire enemy army without losing a soldier, on either side. What you're saying is that if I had a big red button which would instantly kill Riddle, I shouldn't press it, because what it's an assassination. This is why you were LOSING the FIRST WAR!"

"And why are children being taught dirty military strategy?" demanded Mrs Weasley.

"There is no dirty military strategy, military strategy is dirty BY DEFINITION" argued Harry before sighing and continuing, "By the looks of it, we're learning all combat strategy. Whether it be using a cleaning charm to cut someone's arms off by considering their arms as dirt – as is described in Defensive Household Magic – classical textbook duelling – as in A Guide to Advanced Duelling – or leading an army – as in The Art of War. Now enough of debating who wrote what, who IS our new defence professor"

Unfortunately no one seemed to know and Harry snuck off to bed early, not long after Hermione stole his book from Sirius, where he found Hedwig waiting with a small note, simply stating: _PaBNwbUioJlWBdSRddaljbS_.

Harry looked at the note and grinned, it was going to be an interesting year.

* * *

 **The note at the end is just the name of the new DADA teacher, you don't need to decode it to understand the plot.**


	4. Chapter 3

**I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

* * *

"You know, I'd probably be safer without a guard" stated Harry aloud as Moody, Tonks, Lupin and a bounding black dog led him towards platform 9¾. "This way, I'm more identifiable and it's not like you could do anything if they did start a surprise attack. They'd just need to bump into me and disapparate; throw a portkey at me while you weren't looking; stab you all in the back while you're not looking or just fire two dozen blasting hexes at us. I mean I know you're good but I doubt even Dumbledore would be able to simultaneously fight 10 Death Eaters if they weren't so damn scared of him. Reflexes can only be so good."

Harry continued his rant about how many ways they could die up until they reached the platform where Ron and Hermione rushed off to the Prefect's carriage whilst Harry patted Sirius goodbye and made his way over to where Luna was standing.

"Hey Harry" called Luna as he approached, rushing over to hug him.

"Good to see you, shall we find a carriage?"

"Yep, Lily, Neville and Megan have already found one, follow me" Harry rushed after Luna, very thankful he stored all his possessions in a light rucksack rather than a bulky trunk without any weight or size expanding charms on it.

"So Harry, you made it onto the booklist" stated Megan as soon as Harry entered the compartment.

"Yep, you lot too" replied Harry, rummaging in his bag for his copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art and wondering what the school would think about his and his friends transformations. All five of them had grown significantly – from Luna's few centimetres to Harry's half foot extra – they also were all far stronger, although it wouldn't show under robes and had almost unrivalled magical skill, not particularly a surprise if you knew they were all a year older than Dumbledore but far too powerful for 15 year olds.

Luna pulled out a copy of the Quibbler and they spend most of the next few hours in silence but for Lily, Neville and Megan playing various card games using playing cards which didn't explode every twenty seconds, sacrilege in wizarding society but necessary to play any real card game.

Many people passed the carriage to get a look at the boy-who-lied but none entered, not even Cho who passed at the exact same moment that Harry and Lily shared a kiss, sending her away immediately. It wasn't until Ron and Hermione made an appearance that the door slid open.

"So, what's wrong?" asked Harry as Ron marched in, looking grim while Hermione suspiciously eyed Harry, who currently had Luna and Lily lying on either shoulder.

"Malfoy's a prefect" moaned Ron.

"Well who'd you expect" said Harry, lowering his book, "Crabbe, Goyle and Nott never speak and Blaise, well he just fails at flirting with girls. Not to mention how Snape favours him. Who's the other one?"

"Pansy" grunted Ron.

"PANSY? Fuck me, she'll be even worse" groaned Lily, looking up from her card game.

"And you are?" asked Ron, rudely.

"Lily Moon" she said looking to Ron before turning back to Harry.

"And why are you he-" Ron was cut off as one of Harry's bat-bogey hexes and one of Luna's pus-squirting hexes hit Ron.

Once Hermione stopped the stream of puss-covered bats coming from Ron's nose, Lily casually answered saying "I hear professor Lupin found my undergarments on the floor of Harry's room"

Ron immediately turned so red it looked like someone'd hit him with a colour-changing charm – which Harry wouldn't put past Luna – and retreated into himself.

"… So, who're the other prefects?" asked Harry.

"Anthony Goldstein, Padma Patil, Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott" replied Hermione before turning to Lily, "you aren't the same Lily Moon who wrote The Use of Mind Magic in Combat"

"Me and Meg are" stated Lily, pointing a thumb at Megan.

"Just a heads up, Malfoy will get here in around a minute" said Harry.

"How do you know that?" asked Ron incredulously.

"Have you read Lily and Meg's book?" asked Harry, Ron shook his head, "well there you go"

A minute later, the door slid open and Malfoy's smirking face popped in, calling "Well, well, well, what do we have he-"

"And what do you want, Malfoy?" asked Harry.

"Tut tut, Potter, maybe I should give you a deten-"

"Two prefects can overrule one on the matter of a detention and if you appear to be abusing your power I can take it to my head of house who has the power to remove you from your position regardless of what Snape thinks. If you have nothing useful to say, leave."

"I, and what are you doing here, Moon?" snarled Malfoy at Lily.

"I'll do whatever the fuck I want, Malfoy" sung Lily, she then turned to Harry and asked "can I hex him yet?"

"He's got to attack first" instructed Harry, ignoring her pout. "Anyway Malfoy, given you spent half of our last journey on the floor and hexed into oblivion, I'd of thought you'd be smart enough not to just come and do the exact same thing again. Now get out"

"And why sho-" started Malfoy before looking slightly dazed, muttering "whatever Potter" and storming out.

"What just happened" asked Hermione as Harry slid the door to the compartment shut.

"Me" said Megan, leaning on Neville, "I confunded the bugger, honestly I don't know why you didn't earlier"

"I was hoping he'd try and curse us" admitted Harry, "It'd be fun to see the return of Malfoy the Amazing Bouncing Ferret"

Everyone laughed and the rest of the trip was more or less like before, only with Ron joining the card game and Hermione surreptitiously trying to work out how Harry, Lily, Luna, Neville and Megan knew each other.

Once the trip ended, the group got into a carriage – Harry, Lily, Luna, Neville and Megan making sure to pet the thestral while Ron and Hermione looked on in confusion – and were carried off to Hogwarts.

Inside the Great Hall was filled with an atmosphere of excitement and loud, happy talking. As they walked through the double doors, Luna skipped to the Ravenclaw table, Lily to Slytherin one and Megan marched to the Hufflepuff one.

Harry ignored the stares as he, Ron, Hermione and Neville made their way to the Gryffindor table and instead scanned the teachers table. Grubbly-Plank was there instead of Hagrid as well as a toad-like woman wearing a lurid pink cardigan and an eccentric-looking wizard wearing a set of normal muggle clothes which were almost entirely covered by hundreds of multi-colour scales that'd been sown into clothing.

A line of terrified looking first years were led up to the front, the sorting hat gave its awful song and the new first years were sorted while Ron complained about his stomach. Several minutes later and after 'Zeller, Rose' had been sorted into Hufflepuff, Dumbledore stood to give his start of year announcements.

After the normal warnings about not going into the forbidden forest and the like, Dumbledore finally moved onto to new teachers. "We have had three changes in staffing this year," announced Dumbledore, "We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking care of magical creatures lessons; we are also delighted to introduce Professor Lovegood, our new  
Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and finally Professor Umbridge who will be taking History of magic due to Professor Binns' recent exorcism."

And of course this is when Umbridge took the opportunity to give a speech which pretty much amounted to a badly written speech being read out by an uncharismatic bureaucrat in a failed attempt to justify the ministry's intervention in the school.

Finally they were allowed to eat then were sent to their common rooms. Ron and Hermione immediately rushed off to take the first years so Harry and Neville snuck off together, taking a longer route to Gryffindor tower.

"So what do we do tonight?" asked Neville, "I mean, I don't know about you but there's no way I can sleep for over five hours a night."

"Well, I suggest we go to sleep at the same time as everyone else, sleep for three hours then sneak out leaving out curtains shut and a compulsion charm on them so no one opens them. I can just fly straight out the window and you can either sneak out under a disillusionment charm or throw yourself out of the window with a charm on you to slow your fall."

"What about the others?"

Harry hesitated for a moment to think, "I think… well no one's going to have a problem sneaking out; we can all cast disillusionment charms so it's just a matter of meeting up. I can just fly over to Ravenclaw tower as a Falcon, we don't know the passwords to the other ones but then they'll probably sneak out anyway and we can find them then."

"Won't Luna be busy with her house today?"

"In which case I get to watch Luna rip those fucking bullies to shreds"

"Fair enough, I wouldn't be surprised if the other two were doing the same and you'll probably have most of the school calling you a liar"

"I can deal with hateful comments from idiots, if they try to hurt me on the other hand…" Harry casually moved a finger across his throat.

"Mimbulus mimbletonia" called Neville and the portrait of the fat lady which swung open to reveal the Gryffindor common room.

* * *

Hermione Granger was worried, Harry seemed to have changed far too much over the summer and she was convinced he was bottling up his emotions like a ticking time bomb, an explosion of anger just under the surface.

She was also sure his reckless behaviour was as a result of this: two girlfriends at once, one who was an insane conspiracy theorist and the other a Slytherin. _Not that all Slytherins are bad,_ Hermione assured herself, _but obviously she has some kind of ambition and must be deceitful so she's probably only with Harry because he's the boy-who-lived and rich_.

Nodding, Hermione assured herself that she'd make sure Harry had real friends and a proper girlfriend like Ginny or that Chang girl.

"Mimbulus mimbletonia" dictated Hermione and the common room door swung open to a shocking sight. Harry, Seamus and Neville were standing in the centre of the room, Harry and Neville had their wands trained on Seamus while Seamus had his on Harry.

"Stand aside, Seamus" commanded Harry, not moving.

"You're mad!" shouted Seamus.

"A mad person is someone who threatens two people who could duel them to a standstill without a wand"

"Yeah right, you and you batshit crazy eg-" Harry flicked his wand and Seamus was transfigured into a chicken.

"There, now your body fits your tiny, coward mind" stated Harry, stepping over the chicken and walking up to his dormitory. The moment Harry and Neville had both left the room, Seamus transformed back and ran up the stairs shouting, "I'm gonna kill the bastard"

"Err, Ron" stuttered Hermione, staring at the staircase, "go check they're ok"

Ron didn't bother complaining, he just ran over and up the stairs.

* * *

Ron ran up the stairs trying to reflect on what had gone wrong. The last year had gone perfectly, Harry had realised how much he missed Ron and made up without even needing a compulsion charm, Hermione was warming up to him, the only problem was Dumbledore's plan for Voldemort's return – one where Voldemort tried to kill Harry, destroying Harry's Horcrux, then for Harry to pretend to be dead and get away using the portkey – but as long as Harry and Voldemort both had bodies, the Horcrux would be destroyed sooner or later.

Everything had been going fine, Dumbledore trusted him as a spy Harry trusted him as a friend and all the pieces were in play for the future but something had happened to Harry over the summer and these other friends were a threat.

 _I need to split Harry up from them, Neville and Luna are probably ok for now, they're not much of an immediate threat as they don't know much but the other two… Harry's supposed to hate Slytherins, not date them and the Hufflepuff, I don't know enough about her._

Ron reached the top of the staircase where Seamus was lying, fully clothed, on his bed, clearly unconscious while Harry and Neville sat in the corner, whispering.

"So the tracking charm on your bag had the same magical signature as the one on the invisibility cloak" asked Neville in a whisper.

"Yea- oh hey Ron" called Harry, breaking off his conversation.

 _This is very, very bad_ , thought Ron, "hey Harry, what's up with Seamus?"

"Stunning spell, he tried to curse me, he'll wake up tomorrow"

"Fair enough" said Ron, starting to unpack his bag and prepare for bed.

* * *

As the clocks chimed one, Harry and Neville stealthily lifted themselves from bed, closed their curtains – adding the compulsion charms as they did – and nodded to each other, Neville disillusioning himself and descending down the stairs while Harry hurled himself through a window, transforming as he did.

The trip to Ravenclaw tower only took a few seconds; Harry glided over then casually floated around the tower until he saw a window with Luna staring out of it. Harry fluttered down to the window and into the room as Luna flung the window open.

The Ravenclaw dormitory looked almost identical to the Gryffindor one, only blue, which made sense considering they were both in towers. Transforming back into a human, Harry quickly scanned the room only to see that all the beds but Luna's were empty.

"What happened to your roommates?" asked Harry.

"Hospital wing" stated Luna cheerily, "they tried to steal my stuff, I stopped them, wands were drawn and I wiped the floor with them"

"Are you in trouble?"

"No, Flitwick was talking to the first years when it happened and he raced upstairs as it finished. I explained the bulling I'd had in the past then he interrogated all the prefects and sent my roommates to the hospital wing. Ravenclaws always give in to teachers – especially when they're as angry as Flitwick was – so he got the full story and got even angrier"

"What'd he do?"

"Took one hundred points from each of the other Ravenclaws in our year and several in the year above, gave the same number back to me, assigned exorbitant numbers of detentions and promised me my own room so no one could take my stuff."

"Well, your own room sounds… useful" said Harry cheekily before returning to seriousness, "so what do we do now?"

"Find Lily, find a broom cupboard, you get the idea" Harry laughed as Luna pulled him out of the dormitory, disillusioning them as she did.


	5. Chapter 4

**I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

* * *

"Look at today!" groaned Ron, "History of Magic, double Potions, Divination and double Defence against the Dark Arts all in one day!"

"Well, we haven't had Professor Umbridge or Lovegood yet so their lessons might be ok" chided Hermione, "and if you don't like Divination you should've dropped it like me"

"Speaking of which" said Harry, standing to speak to McGonagall who was walking past, delivering timetables. "Professor McGonagall, I would like to drop divination and replace it with Ancient Runes."

"Bu- well Mr Potter, to change classes this late into the course you would need to show some level of independent study on the subject" said McGonagall strictly.

"I'm fluent in Ancient Norse, Greek, Egyptian, Aramaic and both Old and Middle Persian. I can read and write in them too"

"…Well, if that's the case you will need to pass a test to prove it" stated McGonagall, her face practically bleeding disbelief.

"And how soon can I take that test?"

"During today's divination slot. Come to my office then and I'll give you the test"

"Thank you" said Harry, "right, History of Magic" Harry clamoured to his feet and started walking away while Ron and Hermine rushed to keep up.

"But Harry, you don't speak all those languages" argued Hermione, "You're bound to fail the test"

Harry said something in an odd sounding, foreign language.

"What?" asked Hermione incredulously.

"It's Ancient Egyptian – using the dialect of the Middle Kingdom – for 'who says I don't speak those languages'" Harry arrived outside the history room and entered, sitting next to Neville while Ron and Hermione sat opposite.

"Good afternoon, class" said Umbridge, once the entire class had arrived and sat down.

A few people mumbled "good afternoon" in reply.

"Tut, tut" said Umbridge, "That won't do now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge' One more time please. Good afternoon class."

"Good afternoon Professor Umbridge" chanted back the class.

"There, that wasn't difficult, was it? Now if you'll open your books, we're going to be reading the first chapter today"

Umbridge spent the next hour getting the students to read passages of the horrifically biased book aloud and dropping the belief that Voldemort wasn't back every other minute to no avail. Harry simply sat and stoically took her indirect insults although she still managed to give him a detention for not reading 'enthusiastically' enough.

Finally leaving the toad, Harry left the classroom as the bell rang and wandered down to a courtyard where he was joined by Hermione, Ron appearing to have gone elsewhere.

"So Harry, what exactly happened over the summer?" asked Hermione yet again, assuming that as the cat was out of the bag on who Harry's girlfriends were, he would talk.

"As I've already said, I'm not going to tell you" stated Harry, "stop trying"

"But, ok Harry" sighed Hermione, "but you should be more careful Harry. I know that you were cut up over the summer but you can't just let people use you like that, I mean that Moon girl clearly is just after you because you're famou-"

At this point, Harry cast a wandless silencing charm on Hermione and left her for a few seconds while she tried to fly into a verbal rage.

"Hermione, you know _nothing_ about Lily. You assume she's some kind of gold digging scarlet woman because, what? Is it irrational hatred of Slytherins, biphobia, jealousy, _what_? Well speak" demanded Harry, dropping the silencing charm as he did.

"Harry, you're being ridiculous!" chided Hermione in a half shout, "just think, please think about it, you can't know her that well after only a few weeks an- Harry James Potter! Where are you?"

Harry – having hit himself with a disillusionment charm – transformed into a falcon and flew off.

* * *

"And you're sure they knew the magical signature was the same?" asked Dumbledore, holding his head in his hands while Ron explained the events of the previous night.

"Yes, they knew there was a tracking charm on both the bag and the cloak, as well as that they had the same magical signature" summarised Ron.

"Harry…" muttered Dumbledore pensively, "we need to talk to him, get information but if he won't talk to you and I can't see him because of the Horcrux… Severus, I'll get him to give the boy a detention and scan his brain"

"You don't think he's getting information from Voldemort's mind, do you?" asked Ron, "I mean, he used human transfiguration on Seamus but that isn't taught until 6th year."

"I don't know" muttered Dumbledore, "keep an eye out for anything strange. In the meantime, I'll create a modified tracking charm he shouldn't be able to discover, have the Order check the Moon, Lovegood, Jones and Longbottom houses for anything suspicious and dose him with a Love Potion Antidote just in case. You'd best be on your way."

Ron nodded and left the room, agonising over having to deal with uncontrolled variables on his mental chessboard.

* * *

After break finished, Harry trudged his way down to the dungeons where he and Lily took a desk together, annoying Snape to no end.

"Settle down" commanded Snape coldly, slamming the door behind him and swooping over to his desk to give a lecture on how everyone had to get at least an acceptable in potions lest they suffer his 'wrath'. Finally he wrote the instructions to a Draught of Peace on the board and ordered them to create it.

At the end of the class, Snape prowled the rows, complementing the Slytherins and insulting the Gryffindor's potions before stopping at Harry's perfect potion.

Snape's face went from one of anticipation, then to shock, then anger, then a sneer "and Mr Potter, do you really expect me to believe you created this by yourself, 10 points from Gryffindor and a detention for copying Miss Moon"

"He didn't though" sated Lily angrily.

"And how would you know?" snapped Snape, "and as for you, Potter, you can't hand in copied work, Evanesco!" The potion vanished, "that'll be no marks for today then"

"You realise the grades you give me are meaningless, you can try to sabotage my potions as much as you want but I'll still get an O in my OWL potions" stated Harry calmly.

"How dare you, Potter!" spat Snape, "20 points from Gryffindor for your cheek."

"You also realise that the points system is meaningless, that the winning house doesn't get anything and that every year either Slytherin win because of your bias or Gryffindor win because of Dumbledore's bias. If the system were fair, Ravenclaw would win every year."

"Well another detention instead then, Potter! Tonight, my office"

"I've already got one with Umbridge"

"DETENTION TOMORROW THEN!"

"Whatever you say, Professor, can we go now?"

"GET OUT!"

The class departed as fast as they could, even the Slytherins running for the door. Harry left the others and made his way up to McGonagall's office where various students were waiting for their various transfer tests, all of whom immediately turned to stare at Harry.

After around a minute of waiting, McGonagall left the office with a pile of notes, saying "follow me" in her usual commanding voice.

The group were led to one of the smaller classrooms which was rarely used and McGonagall doled out the tests, in Harry's case the end of year Ancient Runes test from the previous year.

Harry completed the hour and a half test in just over twenty minutes and handed it to McGonagall who took it with a very sceptical look while the rest of the class hid their laughter behind their hands, trying to focus on their tests.

Leaving McGonagall to mark it, Harry pulled out Secrets of the Darkest Art and set about completing the notes he'd started on the Hogwarts Express.

Ten minutes later, McGonagall approached Harry looking very confused and handed him his test with an _O_ written on it. "Well Mr Potter, you've done… more than well enough to begin Ancient Runes, I'll adjust your timetable for tomorrow. You may go"

Harry spent the extra hour while he didn't have divination doing his History homework and finally finishing his notes on Horcruxes, eliciting a small cheer from him.

"Harry!" shouted Hermione, rushing over to where Harry was sitting, eating lunch, after she finished Ancient Runes, "Harry, I know you're angry but you shouldn't have antagonised Snape like that, you need to be more serio-"

"Hermione, I am perfectly serious with my studies. Everything I said was the truth and I completed my potion perfectly."

"Bu-"

"No buts, are you ready for the test in DADA?"

"TEST? What Test?" demanded Hermione shrilly.

"Xeno'll need to find out how much we know because of our shoddy past education, first through third years will probably be up to standard because Lupin and fake Moody were both good teachers but he'll need to find out what fourth through seventh can do."

"But what will he test us on?" asked Hermione in a hushed voice.

Harry spun on his chair to where Neville and Megan were sitting, "hey Meg, what did Xeno test you on?"

"Basic 3, Brocklehurst nearly fainted at the Butcher and Finch-Fletchley thought it was something called Cthulhu, whatever that means"

"Well that should be easy enough," Harry turned back to Hermione, "see, basic 3, I could've beaten that in third year"

"But what is it?"

"You're not supposed to know what's in a test before you take it, Hermione. You've got to take your studies seriously" Hermione's completion slowly started shifting to one more akin to Vernon than her normal self, causing to Harry hurriedly grab his bag and rush off calling "see you in class" to Hermione.

As Luna, Lily, Neville and Megan were all eating lunch; Harry walked to the DADA classroom and knocked on the door.

"Harry" called Xeno warmly, swinging the door open, "come in"

"Thanks Xeno" replied Harry, taking a seat opposite Xenophilius where he was eating a bowl of some kind of black vegetable Harry didn't recognise.

"So, how's school" asked Xeno, conversationally.

"It's going all right" answered Harry, "how's teaching?"

"Interesting" said Xeno, leaning forwards like it was his job to observe and report on the activities of his classes, "so far I've had Megan's class and a group of first year Slytherin and Gryffindors. They were surprisingly well behaved but I suppose that comes with the new year although I think seeing Megan's Bogart might've traumatized the class a bit, then again a imagine yours will be worse."

Harry suppressed a grin; Xenophilius had changed a lot over the last 90 years. He was one of the very few relations of someone drafted into the war who realised the golem sent to replace the recruit was a golem. Since then Xeno had somehow magically hijacked the golem, stealing control over its body as well as the data stored in it, in the end a squadron of guardians were sent to his house to recruit him to, after which he spent ten solid years on the golem front before personally hijacking the Golem King, providing essential information for the destruction of the several of the Hordes central control nodes.

In that time, Xeno had changed a lot. Keeping some of his original personality but becoming more in the real world as he did it. Unfortunately Luna – as well as the rest of Harry's group – were deep behind enemy lines when Xeno was brought in and when they finally met again – after 3 years for Xeno and 13 for Luna – the meeting had touched everyone's hearts, until a gang of golem raiders happened upon the tent they were in and literally touched the heart of three soldiers before they were neutralised.

"So how's the research on the Soul Jars?" asked Xeno absentmindedly.

"Great, I've worked out how to find the others. I think we should all meet tonight and I can explain it then"

"That sounds good; I trust you'll be keeping my Luna safe"

"Yes Mr Lovegood" chanted Harry for the millionth time before grinning and leaving.


	6. Chapter 5

**I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

* * *

One minute before the end of lunch, Harry arrived outside the new Defence room where Hermione was furiously pacing.

"Hey Hermione" called Harry, overly cheerily. Hermione didn't respond just stopped pacing and started scanning through a set of notes.

A few moments later, the door swung open and Xenophilius Lovegood poked his head out, calling "come in"

The class filed into the room and took their seats. First Xeno called a register then turned to the class "put your books in your bags and wands away." Most of the class exchanged gloomy looks; the order 'wands away' had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting.

"Now everyone put your hands on your heads" everyone looked around to see if he was serious but on the command "go on" they complied.

"Now, on my command, you are each to draw your wand and tap it to your desk as fast as you can. 3, 2, 1, now"

Harry dropped his hands, flicking his wrist as he did to release his wand from its holster then tapped it to the desk which glowed slightly whilst most of the class fumbled with bags or pockets.

Almost a full minute later, the class finished and Xeno flicked his wand at the board, listing the names:

 _Lavender Brown – Fay Dunbar – Seamus Finnigan – Hermione Granger – Neville Longbottom – Parvati Patil – Harry Potter – Sophie Roper – Dean Thomas – Ronald Weasley – Millicent Bulstrode – Vincent Crabbe – Tracey Davis – Gregory Goyle – Daphne Greengrass – Draco Malfoy – Lilian Moon – Theodore Nott – Pansy Parkinson – Blaise Zabini_

"Now realistically everyone but Harry Potter, Lilian Moon, Neville Longbottom and Theodore Nott would've been killed but as you're only fifth years, I'll be lenient" Xeno flicked his wand again changing the board to:

 _Alive:  
Fay Dunbar – Hermione Granger – Neville Longbottom – Parvati Patil – Harry Potter – Dean Thomas – Ronald Weasley – Tracey Davis – Daphne Greengrass – Draco Malfoy – Lilian Moon – Theodore Nott – Blaise Zabini_

 _Dead:  
Lavender Brown – Sophie Roper – Seamus Finnigan – Millicent Bulstrode – Vincent Crabbe – Gregory Goyle – Pansy Parkinson_

"Now if you'll follow me to the great hall, you will only need your wands" a far more interested, if slightly annoyed, class followed Xeno out of the classroom and into the great hall where they saw the tables gone and a row of 3 clay golems lining the wall where the teacher's table normally went.

"For the next test, all of these golems will launch spells at you for one minute, you are to dodge or block the spells, not to retaliate. If you are hit by a spell your hair will turn blue and you are to move to the back wall," dictated Xeno, then throwing Harry, Neville and Lily a look he added, "you are also not to cast any spells designed to defend the entire class; these are your own tests. 3, 2, 1, go!"

The golems all raised their hands and jets of yellow light started to rain down on the students. Harry twirled his wand in his hand, releasing five separate shield charms which created an invisible shield around him.

"Colovaria!" whispered a voice from behind Harry who immediately spun on his heel to see Draco Malfoy attempting to hex him with a colour changing charm from behind which bounced off of Harry's shield and hit Malfoy turning his hair blue.

"Wh- Professor, Harry hit me with a colour changing charm" shouted Malfoy, throwing Harry a sneer.

"Then will you let be examine your wand to prove you didn't cast it?" asked Xeno casually, Malfoy made a face like he'd been slapped and remained silent, being hit by one of the golem's spells because of it, "then that's a week's detention and 50 points from Slytherin for attempting to sabotage another student's grades"

Before Malfoy could react, the golems stopped and Xeno waved his wand, causing the back wall to display:

 _Alive:  
Fay Dunbar – Hermione Granger – Neville Longbottom – Parvati Patil – Harry Potter – Tracey Davis – Lilian Moon – Theodore Nott – Blaise Zabini_

 _Dead:  
Lavender Brown – Sophie Roper – Seamus Finnigan – Millicent Bulstrode – Vincent Crabbe – Gregory Goyle – Pansy Parkinson – Dean Thomas – Ronald Weasley – Daphne Greengrass – Draco Malfoy_

"Well, many of you are now double dead, but moving onto the next task, if you could make three queues" with a flick of Xeno's wand, the golems lumbered forwards, reforming into three wardrobes as they did and settled in front of the students.

"In each of these golems, I've stored a bogart. On the count of three they will open, you will each tackle your bogart then move to the back of the hall, if you cannot I will interfere and you will be added to the dead list. 3, 2, 1, now"

The wardrobes shot open, revealing an Acromantula for Ron, a banshee for Seamus and a 30 foot tall, glittering red demon with burning red eyes, vast black wings, a whip made of fire, a sword which seemed to emit fear like a Dementor and a demonic head that looked like a cross between a dragon, a Nundu and an Erumpent but thirty times as terrifying for Neville.

The class descended into a screaming mass as Neville casually flicked his wand, turning the Demon King into something more like a fairy godmother than the planet crusher it was.

"IF YOU COULD CALM DOWN" shouted Xeno over the crowd, using an Amplifying Charm on himself as he did, "please continue as you were before"

"What was that thing?" demanded Hermione in a whisper, still staring at where the creature had been.

"You assume I know" muttered Harry, "… Well it was the Demon King"

"The what?" demanded Hermione as they moved forwards in the queue.

"Demon king, king of the demons, leader of the evil motherfuckers, this guy" explained Harry, standing in front of the bogart which transformed back into the Demon King, then with a flick of Harry's wand, back to a fairy princess allowing Harry to dart over to Neville and away from Hermione's questions.

The rest of the Dementors passed relatively uneventfully other than Lily's Bogart, which shared Harry and Neville's form. When it was all over the board read:

 _Alive:  
Fay Dunbar – Neville Longbottom – Parvati Patil – Harry Potter – Tracey Davis – Lilian Moon – Theodore Nott_

 _Dead:  
Lavender Brown – Sophie Roper – Seamus Finnigan – Millicent Bulstrode – Vincent Crabbe – Gregory Goyle – Pansy Parkinson – Dean Thomas – Ronald Weasley – Daphne Greengrass – Draco Malfoy – Hermione Granger – Blaise Zabini_

"Now the next task" announced Xeno "is something relatively easy, in fact Mr Potter and Mr Weasley succeeded at it in their first year. You will get into groups of six to face a mountain troll with. DON'T WORRY" shouted Xeno over the outcry, "YOU WON'T BE IN ANY DANGER. The trolls are actually golems designed to imitate Mountain Trolls in every way but how much they harm you, if you get hit by it your hair will turn red and you will leave the ring."

With a wave of Xeno's hand, a large boxing ring appeared at the end of the hall. Harry, Neville, Lily, Ron and Hermione grouped up whilst Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Blaise and Pansy – as Theodore refused to join their group – sauntered into the ring.

"So what's the plan?" asked Ron while Crabbe appeared to be crushed under the trolls club.

"Neville does it" stated Harry and Lily as Goyle was kicked out of the ring, literally.

"But Harry" chided Hermione as Pansy appeared to be crushed under one of the troll's feet, "we need a plan!"

"We have one: Neville" said Harry as Blaise joined Goyle flying through the air.

"Bu-" tried Hermione before being cut off by Malfoy being crushed and Xeno gesturing for their group to go next.

"Hermione, get behind me, Ron behind Lily" commanded Harry as shields sprang from his, Lily's and Neville's arms, "Neville, you know what to do"

"But Harry! We need to" tried Hermione, cautiously stepping into the ring behind Harry.

Taking a giant leap, Neville lunged at the troll, a sword materialising in his hand as he did. With a bat of Neville's hand, the hand which came for him was lopped off then with another; the troll's head fell to the ground.

The troll's dead form fell towards Harry and Hermione and with a flick of his wrist, Harry vanished the body of the troll while Hermione dived out of the ring in an attempt to avoid it.

"Very good, take five points each and 20 to Mr Longbottom" called Xenophilius, gesturing for them to leave and turning the remaining pieces of troll back into a golem then a troll.

Only one other team managed to take on the troll successfully, it was composed of Fay Dunbar, Parvati Patil, Tracey Davis, Theodore Nott, Dean Thomas and Blaise Zabini who had teamed up despite house differences to ensure they stayed 'alive' although Blaise and Parvati were still both 'killed' by the beast.

 _Alive:  
Fay Dunbar – Neville Longbottom – Harry Potter – Tracey Davis – Lilian Moon – Theodore Nott_

 _Dead:  
Lavender Brown – Sophie Roper – Seamus Finnigan – Millicent Bulstrode – Vincent Crabbe – Gregory Goyle – Pansy Parkinson – Dean Thomas – Ronald Weasley – Daphne Greengrass – Draco Malfoy – Hermione Granger – Blaise Zabini – Parvati Patil_

"Next" called Xeno after the last group were pummelled into oblivion. "The final task is to duel a golem, please all stand against that wall" Xeno pointed to the left wall and the class sat on the benches sitting by it.

"When I call your name, you will come forwards and duel a golem which knows everything a fourth year should know, don't worry, it won't use dangerous spells. Lavender Brown"

Lavender cautiously walked into the centre of the room and faced a golem dressed in Death Eater robes with a mask. "Begin in 3, 2, 1, now!" commanded Xeno.

The golem flicked its hand and a mechanical voice called "Stu-pe-fy!" A jet of red light shot at Lavender who dodged to the side and fired a Freezing Spell at the golem which casually dodged it, walking forwards as it did.

Lavender continued to fight for a few seconds but the golem managed to walk right up to her while blocking her curses and batted her arm aside, knocking her over, then hit her with a disarming charm.

"Millicent Bulstrode" lasted even shorter than Lavender, being hit with a disarming spell within seconds and the golem continued to wipe out Crabbe in the same fashion.

Tracy Davis lasted a full five minutes but eventually was stunned in her exhaustion leading onto Fay Dunbar who managed to defeat the golem with a surprise blasting hex, hitting a metre from the golem which – not recognising the spell as Fay had muttered it under her breath – didn't bother blocking it. The curse blasted one of the golem's legs off and gave Fay enough time to sever its head with a cutting curse.

Next Seamus and Goyle were blasted to the ground in 50 and 30 seconds respectively allowing Hermione to take the stage. She held out for two minutes but was caught by a surprise stunning spell in the side leaving Daphne Greengrass to be taken out in just over a minute.

Finally Xeno called "Neville Longbottom" who took the stage to mixed reactions, some expecting him to destroy the figure in a blaze of glory like he did to the troll, others expecting him to fail within a matter of seconds. At Xeno's command, Neville waved his wand, not bothering to vocalise his spell and fired a wave of black flames at the golem which tried to block it; the fire melted through the magical wall and destroyed the golem.

"Brilliant use of Black flames" commended Xeno, conjuring another golem before calling "Draco Malfoy"

Malfoy waltzed onto the stage, clearly expecting to destroy the golem without any trouble.

"3, 2, 1, now"

"Incendio!" called Malfoy lazily, clearly expecting to utterly destroy the golem like Neville. Flames shot from the end of his wand and were blocked by a casual flick of the golem's wand.

"Flip-en-do!" called the golem and Malfoy was thrown off his feet, slamming onto the floor, "Ex-pell-i-arm-us!"

Malfoy's wand flew away from him and he rounded on Xeno, "that's not fair! Flames destroyed it for Longbottom!"

"Mr Longbottom used black flames, far more dangerous than normal ones. I'm afraid you would need to use a more powerful spell against it, now if you could clear the floor for Miss Moon"

Malfoy sneered at Xeno then marched off calling "like Moon could defeat it"

Lily casually wandered onto the floor, turning to face the golem. "3, 2, 1, now," Lily spun her wand in her hand, waving it at the golem so fast it was almost impossible to see.

A jet of purple light shot at the golem, crossing the metres in a matter of seconds and slammed into the golem. With a deafening boom, the golem exploded, blasting shrapnel in all directions which hit an invisible wall around the stage.

"Yes Malfoy, I'm clearly helpless" called Lily sarcastically while walking off the stage and letting Nott step on.

Nott only just managed to defeat his golem by crushing it with a weight created from a pebble he'd transfigured. Next, Pansy fell to a stunner 13 seconds in and Parvati lasted almost five minutes before being stunned.

Finally Xeno called "Harry Potter" and the class fell silent.

Harry casually wandered onto the stage, staring the golem in the eyes as he did. "3, 2, 1, now"

Not bothering to draw his wand, Harry crossed the stage in three long strides, wandlessly blocking three jinxes as he did and threw a punch at the golem which sent it sprawling across the room. With a flick of his hand four nails flew from Harry's hand and slammed onto the golem, pinning it to the ground.

Striding over to it, Harry reached down, firmly placed his hand on the golem's head and called "Incendio!" so the entire hall could hear, melting the golems insides.

"Extraordinary use of wandless magic Mr Potter" called Xeno, grinning at Harry as he did while Malfoy looked on in fury.

Sophie, Dean, Ron and Blaise were the last four, Sophie going down much like Lavender, Dean and Blaise both lasting a minute and Ron defeating the golem by getting it into a magical trap.

Finally the scoreboard read:

 _Alive:  
Fay Dunbar – Neville Longbottom – Harry Potter – Lilian Moon – Theodore Nott_

 _Dead:  
Lavender Brown – Sophie Roper – Seamus Finnigan – Millicent Bulstrode – Vincent Crabbe – Gregory Goyle – Pansy Parkinson – Dean Thomas – Ronald Weasley – Daphne Greengrass – Draco Malfoy – Hermione Granger – Blaise Zabini – Parvati Patil – Tracey Davis_

"Well class," began Xeno, "that was nowhere near good enough. For next Monday I expect each of you to write a ten inch essay on each part of the test you failed at, explaining why you failed and what you could've improved to pass the test" continuing over the groans of most of the class and the smug looks of the others, Xeno said "and you will have more tests in the future after which you will have the same homeworks, now if you could follow me back to the classroom and get out your Guide to Advanced Duelling books."


	7. Chapter 6

**I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

 **Chapter 6**

* * *

After DADA, Harry fled Hermione's demands for information towards Umbridge's office, awaiting her detention. He arrived slightly early and waited until a good twenty minutes after the detention was scheduled to start before, the door swung open and Umbridge called "come in."

"Good evening, Mr Potter. You're going to be doing some lines for me, no not with your quill; you're going to be using a rather special one of mine. Here you are"

Umbridge leaned forwards handing Harry a quill, a blood quill. While taking the quill from Umbridge, Harry shifted his hand and slammed an unadorned ring into the bare skin of her palm. Immediately Umbridge's eyes rolled in their sockets and she fell backwards, unconscious.

Breaking her fall with a wandless momentum arresting spell, Harry swung open the door, allowing Luna, Lily, Neville and Megan to enter, dropping their disillusionment charms as they did.

"She's already tried to make me write lines with a blood quill" stated Harry as the group surrounded Umbridge, lying unconscious on the floor.

"Well, let's get her up on the table" said Neville, sweeping everything off the table so Harry and Luna could lift her onto it.

Megan approached the body and held her hands over Umbridge's head. "She has Occlumency barriers" explained Megan, "fairly strong compared to the average wizard but standard for political figures. I could shatter them but Lily should be able to sneak in"

Lily nodded and stepped forwards to Umbridge's head. She and Megan were both master Legilimenses but while Megan was best at brute forcing her way through occlumency barriers – allowing her to get through more powerful ones but leaving evidence that they have been tampered with – Lily specialised in slipping through barriers – a technique which was not as effective at breaking in but left no evidence.

"I'm in" stated Lily, her eyes closed, "it's… ugh, she's just… nasty, sadistic at times. Not as sadistic as a demon but she hates everyone who isn't a… I think a rich, pure-blood, white, British, pure-human who's been raised in wizarding culture. She is a half-blood herself but denies it to the extent that she almost believes it herself."

"She isn't sure whether Voldemort's back but knows that, by working for Fudge like she is, she is doing exactly what both Fudge and Voldemort would want. She would rather Voldemort to be back because then she could play a part in a holocaust against Muggleborns. She's here to take control over Hogwarts while discrediting Dumbledore and silencing Harry, she intended to make Harry shout at her in your first lesson and give you weeks of detentions because of it, as you didn't rise to her bait she instead decided to give you a detention anyway then leave you outside for long enough that you'd just leave, then she could give you a week's detentions and accuse you of thinking you were above other students and that the rules don't apply to you. She also tried to get a group of Dementors to attack you, not caring about whether the attack killed you but as we were on the front lines of the demon king at the time, they couldn't find you and returned empty-handed"

"We should do away with her" suggested Megan, "make it look like an accident"

"But she hasn't done anything, yet" argued Luna.

"She tried to murder Harry and with Voldemort back she sure as hell will" ranted Megan.

"She has drafted laws designed to target non-humans but she won't actively attack people because it puts her in danger" stated Lily, still scanning through memories.

"Killing her would give Fudge the ability to fire Dumbledore for negligence, even if it looks like her fault" thought Harry aloud, "we should do something to make her less dangerous to the students though; does she have any other blood quills?"

"Yep, in that draw" said Lily, pointing over to a draw without opening her eyes. Harry took out the quills and modified all of them to be permanently keyed to Umbridge so anyone using them would just torture her.

"What should I do with her then?" asked Lily.

"We should implant a curse to hurt her when she hurts a student" suggested Neville.

"Good idea, anyone against it?" no one said anything so Harry turned to Lily saying, "Can you set up the necessary mind, confundus bits"

"Yep, just give me… there, hit her with a Cruciatus" command Lily.

"Crucio!" roared Megan, jerking her wand at Umbridge who remained motionless.

"Good, stop in 4, 3, 2, 1, now" Megan stopped the curse and Lily spent a few moments wrapping up the stored pain so it'd activate when Umbridge tried to harm students.

"How do we stop her picking on Harry?" asked Neville.

"Simple, we make her fall in love with him" stated Luna in one of her extra dreamy voices.

"I… Err… What?" asked Harry, "I guess, that might… work? But… How would you even do that?"

"We copy some of my and Lily's brain patterns into her head"

"I don't know how to do that, Luna" stated Lily, still zooming around Umbridge's mind.

"Here" said Luna, walking over and waving her wand over Umbridge's head while leaning her own so her and Lily's foreheads touched. "If you draw them out like this, then that then… there"

Luna stepped backwards, grinning. "Yep, it's in there, she'll become conscious of it over the next few days"

"Well... good, I guess" started Harry, "anything else we should do?"

"Fudge has a plot to make her something called a 'High Inquisitor' which will be enacted in 6 days and announced in 7. The position has existed historically so if we tell Dumbledore, he can choose his own High Inquisitor"

"We can tell dad about it tonight" offered Luna.

"Good, that and her falling in love with Harry should destroy all her plans, I've also got blackmail on half the Ministry so we should be able to deal with them if necessary but I don't think we need to do anything else to her mind. I'll retreat from it"

Lily waved her wand over Umbridge's head, obliviating her so she thought Harry had written the lines and confunding her so she'd let Harry go immediately. "There, we'll wait outside" stated Lily, leaving the room with the others.

As soon as the door swung shut, Harry wandlessly woke up Umbridge who didn't seem to notice she'd been unconscious.

"Well Mr Potter, I hope you'll put in more effort in future lessons, you may go"

Harry plucked his bag from the floor and left the room, leaving a slightly dazed Umbridge behind him.

* * *

"High Inquisitor?" asked Xeno, "I'm sure I can persuade Dumbledore to choose someone himself so that shouldn't be a problem but what about these Horcruxes"

The group were sitting in a ring on the floor of Xeno's office, like they had so many times before, with the locket in the centre.

"Well" started Harry, pulling a notepad from his bag, "pieces of soul are connected by what are generally called silver cords and are effectively incorporeal strands of magic. With the locket I should be able to visualise the cords, giving be an exact location of all the other Horcruxes and Riddle himself, further we should be able to use the Horcruxes to see into Riddle's mind and possible mess with him in other ways. The Locket currently contains 6.25% of Riddle's soul and based on the strength of the magical ties connected to it, I'd say that the diary and my scar contained a total of 5 1.5625%; I assume the diary had 50% and I had 1.5625%. Including the locket he currently has 5 Horcruxes and a total of 48.4375% of his soul in the realm of the living; 42.1875% in his possession and 0.78125% in his body"

"So he's already half gone?" asked Neville.

"Yep, although that doesn't change his magical abilities. Now we should be able to see the locations of the Horcruxes with a simple ritual but to mess with Voldemort will require a ritual which can only be performed with a full moon, the next one being in one week at 4:36 in the morning"

"Then what?" asked Neville.

"Well if we get half of the remainder of his soul, that is 24.21875% for which we only need the largest remaining Horcrux then we should be able to start messing with him. I think our aim should be to collect all the Horcruxes, use them to help kill Riddle then destroy them with Fiendfyre as soon as he becomes a wraith, killing him permanently."

"So, can we detect the Horcruxes now?" asked Xeno.

"Yes, everyone place your left hand on the person to your left's right shoulder and hold your wand to the Horcrux" everyone did as Harry commanded and he read aloud "Tom Marvolo 'Lord Voldemort' Riddle spiritus ostende te! Vide universorum vincula re! Ostendit locus! Nunc!"

There was a blinding flash and the area in the circle seemed to morph, first to a box hidden under a shack just outside Little Hangleton, then the locket before them, then a cup in the vault of Bellatrix LeStrange, then a crown in a secret room in Hogwarts castle and finally a snake following Voldemort around the halls of Malfoy Manor.

"That was… wow" muttered Neville coming back to life.

"Daddy, the ring, its stone" exclaimed Luna excitedly.

"It did have the symbol of the Deathly Hallows on it so there's a good chance that it is the resurrection stone" answered Xeno, looking deep in thought.

Everyone else just remained silent, Luna had already explained what the 'hallows' are and none of them seriously believed in them.

"Well… does anyone know where that crown is?" asked Megan.

"The ritual gave an impression of hidden room on the seventh floor but it wasn't any of the ones on the marauders' map" muttered Harry aloud. "… Dobby?"

There was a crack and the house elf appeared. "The Great an-"

"Hi Dobby" interrupted Harry before Dobby could proclaim him the second coming of Merlin. "You wouldn't happen to know of any secret rooms on the seventh floor which the students don't know about?"

"Yes Master Harry Sir, there is the come and go room" answered Dobby excitedly.

"Can you take us there" asked Harry.

"Yes Master Harry Sir" replied Dobby.

"Ok link hands people" ordered Harry and he, Luna, Lily, Neville, Megan and Dobby held each other's hands whilst Xeno stepped away.

There was a crack and Harry arrived in a corridor on the seventh floor, in front of a painting of trolls in tutus.

"Yous have to walk in front of the wall three times, thinking of what you want to find, sir" explained Dobby.

Harry began pacing the wall thinking _I need to find the Horcrux, I need to find the Horcrux, I need to fin-_ Harry stopped as a door opened before him. Grasping the handles, Harry flung the door open and burst inside where he found a battered old tiara sitting on a pedestal.

"Is that is?" asked Neville softly.

"Spiritus revelare!" called Harry, flicking his wand in his hand, "yep, we are now the proud owners of 18.75% of Riddle's soul or 38.7096-something% of the soul he has left. Dobby, can you take us back"

With a crack they arrived back in Xeno's room where he was depositing the locket in what Harry recognised as a magical deadlock safe.

"Here's the diadem" said Harry, passing the tiara to Xeno who placed it in the safe before sealing it.

"Great" cheered Luna, "anything else we have to do tonight?"

"Nope" replied Harry, storing his notebook back in his bag.

"Well, I guess I'll see you five next week, or in class, goodnight" called Xeno.

The group turned to leave and Luna grabbed Harry and Lily by their waists, saying "interestingly, I have my own bedroom now" as she did.


	8. Chapter 7

**You don't need to remember the names of the duelling styles, I thought they needed names when I wrote them so they've got Latin names for what they are, if I ever refer to the styles again I'll add what the name means.**

 **I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

* * *

"Well, here you are, Mr Potter" remarked Professor McGonagall, passing Harry his new timetable.

"Do they really need to give you a new timetable?" asked Megan, "I mean it's exactly the same but with Ancient Runes where Divination used to be"

Harry gave a non-committal grunt as he checked his new classroom, "well, what do you guys have today?"

"The Slytherins and Ravenclaws are in double Transfiguration, you guys have double Charms" stated Lily, "what about you Luna?"

"I've got Herb… oh" Luna looked over at the teachers table where Xenophilius had just broken off a conversation with McGonagall.

"What's up" asked Harry.

"It-" started Luna,

"My house too" interrupted Neville.

"And mine" added Lily, "someone's tried to break in and been caught by the wards"

Xenophilius quickly rushed over, asking "all of your houses too?" as he did.

"I think so" answered Lily, "other than Harry"

"Well, I didn't put any wards over the Dursley's so I wouldn't know" reported Harry with a small laugh.

"He probably sent оттуу тоок тартиби to check if we have anything he wouldn't approve of" muttered Xeno, switching into Kyrgyz as he knew no one apart from them would speak it or have the necessary magical implants to understand it.

Harry laughed at Xeno's order of the flaming chicken joke and asked "so what do we do?"

"Well, I don't know about your wards but the wards on my house will vaporise any burglars within half an hour of their break in so I'll have to go and free them" stated Xeno, loud enough for McGonagall and Snape, who'd wandered over to see what was happening, to hear.

"Mine and Megan's do" said Neville, "Lily?"

"Transfigures their heart into a grenade after an hour" stated Lily casually.

"Well… I guess that's nicer than Meg's" muttered Neville, "so, we'll need to go home"

"I'll get you lot the morning off, Luna stay here"

"Bu-" tried Luna.

"No buts, there's no reason for you to come. We'll only be gone for the first lesson, Harry, can you take my lesso-"

"WHAT" demanded Snape with a snarl, "Potter cannot teach!"

"Yes he can, there are no qualification requirements – after all, Lockhart got in with a D in Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL, fool couldn't even fight pixies – and Harry is exceptional at the subject. Besides it'll be good experience for the future"

"But… what about his first lesson?" asked McGonagall.

"Our first charms lesson will be half an hour of being told how important our OWLs are then revising summoning charms, Accio Antidote to Love Potion!" commanded Harry and a small amount of liquid flew out of his goblet, "there, no OWL exam would require me to have accurate enough summoning charms to separate potions from pumpkin juice so me going to charms would be a waste of time, oh and on the subject of this this" said Harry, pointing his wand to the ball of liquid and looking nowhere in particular, "I'm immune to love potion so please don't spike my drink with its antidote but if it'll help you sleep at night" Harry hovered the potion into his mouth and swallowed it.

"See, Harry'll be fine" said Xeno, "now if you'll excuse me, a Miss Nymphadora Tonks and Mr Remus Lupin are down to twenty-five minutes before their bodies are disintegrated and scattered over various seas"

Xenophilius left with Lily, Megan and Neville leaving Harry to peek at Luna's timetable, "so, you'll be in my class"

"Yes Sir… and I've been a very naughty g-" started Luna with a cheeky grin.

Luna was silenced as Harry generally elbowed her in the side, "so you've had your first lesson?"

"Yes sir, I enjoyed my first class with daddy," another elbow, "what? It was true"

Harry groaned, "So, what am I teaching?"

"Duelling styles" said Luna, becoming serious again, "we've covered the theory so we should be doing a practical"

"Easy enough, I guess it'll just be the boring ones" muttered Harry, pulling 'A Guide to Advanced Duelling' out of his bag and scanning through it to check what he was allowed to teach.

"But Harry" called Hermione sidling over now that the others were gone, "you can't teach a lesson"

"I don't mean to be rude, Hermione, but there doesn't appear to be any correlation between what you think I can do and what I really can do, now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lesson to teach" Harry got to his feet, ignoring Hermione's look of indignation and left for the defence classroom.

Harry headed into the classroom, took Xeno's chair – after dispelling the five separate jinxes attached to it – and put his feet up of the desk, waiting for the bell to ring. Five minutes later, Harry swung the door open and called in the class of 4th year Ravenclaws and Slytherins.

"Potter! What are you doing here?" demanded Harper, one of the 4th year Slytherins.

"I'm teaching the class because some fool thought it was a good idea to break into Professor Lovegood's home, now leave your bags here, this will be a practical lesson"

"Any why should I listen to you, Potter?" asked Harper with a sneer, "you're insane after all, yo-"

"You'll listen to me because you don't want to spend the next month in detention now move it!" commanded Harry with enough authority to scare Harper into submission.

There was a lot of grumbling but the Ravenclaws did as Harry asked and were quickly followed by the Slytherins. Harry led the class into the Great Hall and waved his hands at the desks, causing them to float into the air and be caught into the magical field keeping the floating candles in the air.

Harry marched up to the front of the hall – ignoring the muttering about his wandless magic – and turned to address the class.

"All right class, today we're working on the seven core duelling styles, who can tell me what they are?"

Several hands went up and Harry pointed at one of them, "Imperitus, Dominatio, Praesidium, Plenus Inspiratione, Corporalis, Creaturae and Claudicatio"

"Correct, ten poi- ok I don't know if I'm allowed to give points" Harry spun on his heel to face the hourglasses storing the house points, "ten points to Ravenclaw." As he watched ten sapphires fell into the bottom section of the Ravenclaw hourglass, "well apparently I can give points so you lot had better be on your best behaviour."

"As you should know from yesterday's lesson, Imperitus is the simplest and most common duelling form but is also one of the weakest, who can tell me why this is?"

Harry pointed to another student with their hand up who answered "Imperitus consists of using spells as they are whereas other forms are more adaptive, the Dominatio style"

"Correct, take 5 points. Dominatio is about keeping control over your own spells even after you've cast them, allowing you to bend their direction and if you're really good at it, change their properties while in the air. Can anyone tell me why this is so difficult?"

"It's really fiddley as you have to keep focus on every spell in the air which makes it difficult to keep more than a few spells in the air at one time."

"Correct, 5 points to Slytherin. Now you should've gone over it with more detail yesterday but Praesidium is very defensive and opportunistic; Plenus Inspiratione is the opposite, very aggressive and reckless; Corporalis is a more muggle style, focused on physically hitting the opponent and usually using disapparition to do it; Creaturae is focused on transfiguring objects around you to attack enemies and finally Claudicatio is about manipulating enemy spells and saving your energy supplies by turning enemy spells against them. If you want some examples of people who use these styles, Dumbledore rapidly switches between Plenus Inspiratione and Praesidium; Grindelwald used his own form which focused on creating one big moving shield and fuelling it by manipulating the energy of enemy spells to strengthen the shield while shooting curses at enemies; Tom Riddle, aka Voldemort, initially used almost exclusively Praesidium but as he started to believe himself immortal, he switched to primarily Plenus Inspiratione, I don't know what he's using now; Professor Lovegood uses his own, very unique, form which focuses on mayhem and generally making it so the opponent has no idea what the hell is going on; McGonagall obviously uses Creaturae; Snape uses Dominatio and Claudicatio; Flitwick uses Corporalis and I use a mixture of Claudicatio and Corporalis. Now there are hundreds of other duelling styles but you don't need to know them to get through your OWLs."

Harry waved his wand at the left wall and a row of Death Eaters manikins appeared, then a row of manikin of innocent looking people and finally a row of red circles to show people where to stand. "Today you're going to be practising the necessary skills to use Dominatio, you will each stand on a red circle and fire a disarming spell – or honestly any other offensive spell; it doesn't really matter – at the innocent, then bend the spell around them and get it to hit the Death Eater"

People started moving towards the circles but Harper didn't move and shouted "so you're not going to teach us how to do it? Well, I doubt you even know ho-"

Harper was silenced as Harry's wand sliced through the air and two jets of red light shot directly at Harper, bending around him in spirals then flying up into the air and colliding.

"If you'd paid attention in your last lesson, you'd know that to control a spell you must continue to focus on it as you did while casting it but apparently you think yourself above such mundane things as paying attention in class" sneered Harry in a near perfect impression of Snape, "now get to work"

Harper sneered at Harry but moved to a circle never the less and proceeded to completely fail, not only at bending his spell but at casting it too.

"Hey, Professor" called Luna with a grin, "I've done it"

"Ok, if you succeed then… " Harry waved his hand and a row of red circles and Death Eater manikins appeared by the right wall, "stand in the red circle, facing the wall and cast a disarming charm then bend it around you to hit the manikin."

Luna marched over to the wall, cast a disarming spell at the wall, bent it around her head, slammed it into the manikin and finally turned back to Harry, "what now sir?"

"Well, why don't you ensure you're physically capable of duelling by doing… say, five hundred press-ups" ordered Harry with a comically nasty grin.

Luna dropped face first towards the ground, breaking her fall into her first press up while Harry struggled to come up with tasks for Luna.

* * *

"What happened here?" asked Tonks as she reached the top of the hill overlooking Xenophilius' house, 'the rook'

The house, which Molly claimed looked like a fairy-tale tower surrounded by a small collection of plants, was a gigantic stone ship with a tower sticking out from towards the back. The ship was sitting in a large pond and moving around it were dozens of figures which Tonks recognised to be golems, the golems appeared to be tending to the fields around the ship where hundreds of multi-coloured plants were growing: twenty foot purple trees; glittering rainbow coloured mushrooms; black and white shrubs with odd looking, rectangular black and white berries growing on them and dozens of other plants which simply defied description.

"Wha… What do we do?" asked Tonks, looking to Lupin.

"I… Well, I guess we sneak into the boat and see if we can find out what happened"

The two disillusioned themselves then started to creep down the hill then, all of a sudden, they were frozen in place while thirty golems in glittering suits of black armour holding various hideous looking weapons charged out of the ship on four legged creatures which looked like a cross between a dragon, a Nundu and a horse, stopping at the pair and placing swords to their throats.

Tonks desperately tried to move but her body was frozen in place, _Finite, Finite, damn it, why didn't I take that wandless magic course_ thought Tonks desperately, _Finite, Finite, Finite, yes!_ Thought Tonks as she felt the magic take hold, _wait… I still can't move, what is this?_

Twenty minutes later, there was a crack as Xenophilius appeared in front of the pair who were still frozen in place with swords to their throats and were starting to feel their skin bubble.

"Good day" called Xeno, "May I ask exactly what you're doing, breaking into my house?" Xeno waved his hand and Tonks felt the bubbling stop and her mouth be released from the body bind while the warrior golems moved away.

"I… you…" started Tonks, unsure what to say.

"We were just checking your house was ok" tried Lupin, "Molly – err, Molly Weasley that is – said she'd heard some kind of disturbance over here and she knew you weren't home so Nymphadora here – as an Auror – felt it was her duty to check no one was breaking in"

"A word of advice, Mr Lupin, don't lie to someone when they've got you in a lie detection ward. Now, are you here on the orders of Dumbledore?"

"N- I don't know what you're talking about" tried Lupin.

"Again, nice try but the lie detection ward shows that you're lying and do know what I'm talking about, so you are here on Dumbledore's orders. Are you here to investigate me, Luna or both of us?"

This time Lupin and Tonks kept quiet so Xeno walked up to Lupin, moved to his ear and asked "are you here for me? … Are you here for Luna? … Are you here for us both? … So Luna" stated Xeno, calmly.

"How?" asked Lupin in a defeated voice.

"Your heart rate, now, why are you investigating Luna?"

"We just want to make sure Harry's safe" stated Tonks diplomatically.

"Well, you're telling the truth so I won't call the DMLE or leave you to die but I suggest that you don't try and break in again, we're on the same side after all." With a wave of Xeno's hand, Tonks and Lupin were ejected from the wards, launching them backwards.

"Wait, ho-" with a crack, Xeno vanished. Tonks sighed, muttering "well, at least we're still alive. Right, what now?"

"Well, I don't know about you but I'm not going back in there. I guess we should go and report to Dumbledore"

There was a crack as Lupin and Tonks vanished. Sighing, Xeno dropped his disillusionment charm and set about re-tuning the wards so Dumbledore couldn't use the memories Tonks and Lupin had from the ward to create a counter to it, not that it would matter if he did: there were more wards around his ship than stars in the sky.


	9. Chapter 8

**I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

 **Chapter 8**

* * *

Unlike Umbridge, Snape threw open his door the moment Harry arrived outside his office in the dungeons. "Get in, Potter" sneered Snape, "You're going to be writing lines, sit there"

This seemed out of character for Snape, who usually would've had Harry disembowel hundreds of frogs without gloves or something equally nasty but Harry sat nevertheless, taking out a quill as he did.

The moment Harry had his hands occupied with retrieving his quill and ink, Harry felt a burst of magic behind him, followed by a whooshing sound.

Instinctively, Harry dived left – still in his chair – and the stunning spell Snape had fired crashed into the desk, sending it flying towards the door. From where he sat, sideways and stuck in a chair, Harry wandlessly summoned his wand and threw up a one-way shield charm, strong enough to send Snape flying backwards across the room.

Snape tried to cast a spell but before he could, one of Harry's stunning spells slammed directly into his chest, immediately followed by one from Neville who had been closest to the door outside and had burst in the moment he sensed the first spell fly.

"What happened?" asked Neville calmly, his wand trained on Snape's greasy head.

"He tried to stun me the moment I sat down" stated Harry equally calmly. "Reparo!" the smashed desk flew back together and to where it was.

"Well, let's get to work" muttered Lily, lifting Snape to the desk with a wave of her wand and placing her hands over his head. "Well… there's no way I can sneak past these" stated Lily, a look of intense concentration on her face, "I don't think I've ever seen barriers this strong in a human, Meg?"

Megan stepped forwards and held her hands over Snape's head, "I think… I think I can break through, it'll leave traces but we have to Obliviate him of the fight and we can't do that if he's got barriers this strong so we'll just have to try and put his shields back together again once we're done"

After a long breath, Megan slammed her eyes shut and began focusing on smashing through Snape's barriers, wincing every few seconds as her mental probe crashed into them.

Several minutes later, Snape's barriers fell and Megan let out a sigh of relief, "we're through, he's a… Lily, can you have a look in here?"

Lily stepped over and placed her hands over his face, "yep, he's got another set of walls in here. There"

"Thanks" muttered Megan, going back to her barrier smashing.

After one more minute, Megan finished again, "ok, in his real mind he's a-"

"Meg, take a look at this" muttered Lily.

"What, I just see a junior potions award"

"There's something here, hidden. If I just… there"

"He has three levels of mind?" demanded Megan, slipping into the final layer of Snape's mind, "I've never even heard of a human doing that"

"I think most humans would just focus on one really powerful shield but as Snape's a spy he has to do something more intricate"

"What's going on in there?" inquired Harry.

"Well, in the first layer of Snape's mind, he's a double agent on Dumbledore's side. In the second layer he's a triple agent on Riddle's side and on the third, true, layer he's a quadruple agent on Dumbledore's side."

"That's… a lot of sides" muttered Harry, "why's he got such complex mental shields?"

"Riddle demands that he be allowed to scan Snape's mind to make sure he's loyal" stated Megan, "this way he will never suspect that Snape's a quadruple agent"

"Why did he attack Harry?" asked Luna.

"Dumbledore's orders" answered Megan, sneering at Snape. "Dumbledore wanted him to find out about us, how we met, all of that. The idea was for him to stun you; scan through your mind; magic lines onto your parchment so it looks like you did the work; Obliviate you then send you off. Dumbledore also said to remove any natural occlumency barriers which I assume must have been to let you see visions of what Riddle was doing more frequently. Not that you can do that anymore."

"Great, so why does Snape hate me?"

"He hated your father for bullying him at school and marrying Lily who he had an obsessive attraction to. Snape met Lily before they went to Hogwarts and introduced her to the wizarding world; they became friends but obviously were sorted into different houses at Hogwarts. Over time their friendship eroded and she never returned Snape's affections."

"How bad was James' bullying?" asked Harry nervously.

"Under normal circumstances it would be pretty unforgivable but considering that most of the bullying went on during the war – during which there were 13 separate in-school murders, mostly aimed at the Slytherins who were openly planning to join the Death Eaters and committed by students who'd just had their families attacked, raped, tortured and murdered by Death Eaters – you could cut him some slack. James' pranks were never aimed to permanently harm and he did once save Snape's life despite knowing that doing so could and did result in Snape being able to become a Death Eater and kill dozens"

"When did he switch sides?"

"Not long before you were born, Snape was staying at the Hog's Head to meet with some non-Death Eater friends when he saw Dumbledore and a woman who looked like seer – who he later discovered to be Professor Trelawney – go up to a private room. Not long after he heard the sounds of a prophecy being delivered so snuck upstairs and heard the end of it: _ile the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..._ "

"A moment later he was discovered and made a break for it, only just escaping Dumbledore and publicly marking him as a Death Eater. He told Riddle about the prophecy and was initiated into Riddle's inner circle – getting a dark mark – because of it, however he didn't realise that Lily was pregnant and due for July. Once it was revealed he begged Riddle to spare Lily – which explains why he was so hesitant to kill her – and became a spy for Dumbledore to help protect her. Not long after becoming a spy, he became disillusioned with Riddle's cause and truly wanted to defeat the Death Eaters. It was also around this point where Snape managed to get Riddle to choose him to be a spy on Dumbledore, allowing him to set up his position as quadruple agent for Dumbledore. Once your parents were killed he became sick with grief but decided to work with Dumbledore to protect you."

"He's a teacher here to protect me?" asked Harry incuriously.

"Well… yes. His main goal is to protect you and kill Riddle however while he protects you for Lily's sake, he also hates you because you are the living embodiment of his failure and what he believes to be James' corruption of Lily. He justifies this with the argument that he needs to appear to hate you because otherwise the Death Eaters might question his loyalties, this is also his excuse for why he favours the Slytherins and is so mean but in reality it is mostly him taking his bitterness out on others. Honestly, I think he needs to see a mind healer. It appears that Ron is also working with Dumbledore as a spy on you for him"

"And what are the Order up to?" asked Harry trying to use his professional detachment to stop him butchering Snape for betraying his parents.

"They're guarding the record of the prophecy in the Department of Mysteries. They're not destroying it because only you or Riddle can retrieve it and as you're safe in Hogwarts they hope to lure Riddle into the Ministry to unveil him. They're also recruiting but that's about it"

"And Riddle?" asked Harry.

"Recruiting and trying to get the prophecy"

Harry nodded, "is that everything?"

"Just about, what's our backstory?" asked Lily.

"Say… during the summer Ron and Hermione weren't talking to me so I owled Neville as a friend and we met up at which point I met Megan as Neville's secret girlfriend. Us three decided to learn to defend ourselves against Riddle; Meg and Neville invited Luna as they had become friends during the previous year and Luna brought Lily as her girlfriend. We also all took unbreakable vows to prove we were against Riddle. Then a load of training and fluff to fill out the rest of the summer, sound good?"

"I can make that believable" stated Lily, drawing her wand and starting to mutter as she waved it over Snape's head.

"So how do we stop him picking on Harry?" asked Neville.

"We could always -" started Luna.

"NO" ordered Harry with all of the authority and finality he could conjure.

"Bu-" tried Luna.

"We are not, I repeat NOT, making Snape fall in love with me" commanded Harry.

"Fine" conceded Luna, pouting as she did, "so what's your plan then?"

"Epiphany him so he realises he's just taking his bitterness out on me and the other students. He can still be nasty if it's so essential to his cover but less so, especially to first-years. Also make him cancel my second detention, we can't risk destroying his mental barriers and repairing them again"

"You could always do the detention without stunning him" suggested Neville.

"You could always do Xaktar with a water pistol; I'm not spending eight hours pickling rats' brains with that damn bat hanging over me"

"Fair enough" said Neville, taking a seat to watch Megan and Lily do their magic on Snape's mind.

Half an hour later, the pair decided they'd done the best they could at recreating Snape's mental barriers and anything else would just provide more evidence of tampering so the group disillusioned themselves and left Harry to wake Snape.

Harry sat on the chair, put his head on the desk to make himself look unconscious and wandlessly woke Snape.

Immediately Snape got to his feet, not seeming to notice he'd been on the ground, and approached Harry. With a flick of his wand, several hundred lines of 'I won't copy other students work' appeared on the paper in front of Harry, with another Harry felt a memory modifying spell hit him and bestow him with the knowledge of what Snape wanted Harry to think while leaving the memory of what happened intact and finally a waking charm.

"Your detention is over, Potter" sneered Snape, "don't bother coming to the next one, I doubt I could cope with the stench, now get out!"

Harry did as Snape ordered, grabbing his bag and rushing out of the door to get his few hours sleep before the group's night-time plans while Snape rushed off to the headmaster's office.

* * *

"Well, Severus, what did you find?" asked Dumbledore the moment the gargoyle had moved back into its original place, sealing the room to any listening ears.

"The Potter brat met his new friends over the summer. As you stopped Weasley and Granger from communicating with him Potter went to Longbottom as a friend, from there he met the others and they joined to practise defence. They practised at the Lovegood house to avoid the trace since the Ministry assumed that any magic was done by adult wizards living there. I also did see a memory of all of them making unbreakable vows that they aimed to defeat the Dark Lord and bore no ill will towards each other."

"A foolish move but at least it proves they don't intend to deliver Harry to Voldemort" muttered Dumbledore, going over the information in his head. "How did they get so powerful?"

Snape scowled at the idea of Harry being powerful but answered nonetheless, "a combination of constant practise and odd circumstances such as Longbottom having previously used his father's wand which wasn't suited to him. Potter appears to have been held back in classes by Weasley and that combined with Granger making him feel like he didn't know anything and doing his homework for him made him seem far less…" Snape swallowed before spitting out "powerful than he is"

Dumbledore nodded, "what about the wards on the houses, not one of the Order members succeeded in their scouting and some – specifically the ones checking Miss Jones' house – have suffered serious injuries, nothing permanent but their wards seem oddly excessive."

"Potter was paranoid that the Death Eaters would target the others as they're his friends and they all worked together – with Mr Lovegood – to ward their houses. There are also wards specifically designed to target people wearing Dark Marks changing the wards to go for the kill instantly instead of with a break period. As Dedalus and Elphias saw, Jones' house was designed to disable instantly by shattering the kneecaps of home breakers but they still waited before the kill"

"Anything else I should know?" asked Dumbledore calmly.

"Potter and his group intend to aim to kill Death Eaters instead of simply capturing them; he isn't getting on with Weasley and Granger; Umbridge's blood quills are broken and Potter suspects there will be some kind of backlash from the Ministry from him being able to teach in defence classes."

"Yes, the Minister intends to have a meeting with me, Xenophilius and Harry tomorrow. I believe he'll try to use it as an excuse to appoint Dolores as high inquisitor, thankfully I have my own one lined up already."

"Good, I'm sure you'll be able to wheedle the brat out of trouble again" sneered Snape, "I suggest you get Mr Weasley into position again, Potter's girlfriends are also making him think for himself too much"

"Yes, we can't let Mr Potter run off or turn dark, we need Riddle to destroy his scar then one to kill the other before we can really intervene after all" stated Dumbledore, "well, you've given me a lot to think about, Severus. Goodnight"

"Goodnight, Sir" called Snape, striding out of the office.


	10. Chapter 9

**I don't own Harry Potter**

* * *

 **Chapter 9**

* * *

"So Harry, how was detention?" asked Hermione expectantly as Harry entered the common room.

"Fine, Snape had me writing lines for some reason but at least he cancelled the next detention" said Harry; taking a seat by the fire and pulling out part of the mountain of homework the fifth years were being set.

"Wonder what he's up to?" mumbled Ron as he started inventing dreams for divination, "probably nothing good"

"Ron" chided Hermione, "he's part of Order, we should trust him." Ron grunted but otherwise didn't react. Hermione didn't say anything for a few moments before carefully asking "and how was the defence lesson you, taught, Harry?"

"It was fine, Hermione" said Harry stiffly, "how was charms?"

"What you expected… I was wondering, where exactly you were at break and lunch. You haven't really spoken to us all day"

"I've been planning the death of Riddle" stated Harry truthfully in a tired but blunt voice, "the Order and Ministry might be content to sit back while Riddle gets back to his former strength but I refuse to let that happen."

"But Harry, they are doing things and they know what they're doing. You can't j-" tried Hermione.

"Hermione, may I remind you about the correlation between what you think I can do and what I really can do. I am perfectly capable of actively disrupting Riddle's plans, anyone is but the Order seems to think that they should only work reactively or defensively. If the Order wanted they could have the adult Malfoy, Nott, Avery, Rosier, Parkinson, Selwyn and Yaxley all simultaneously assassinated, most likely by getting them into one building with anti-disapparition wards around it then bathing the place in Fiendfyre. If they did that, Riddle would lose almost all of his funding and the only rich families would have left would be in Azkaban, where they're even easier to kill. The Order knows Riddle's planning to attack Azkaban and release his old Death Eaters but do they do anything? Even when they know that not doing so will cause the deaths of hundreds of people more than if they simply killed the Death Eaters? No. So why do you think that they're the best people for the job, if I didn't know he was too stupid to come up with the idea, I'd think that the Order was created by Riddle in an attempt to make sure his main enemies thought they were opposing him when they were really doing fuck all, that and how even if they did meet a Death Eater, they'd only be using fourth year spells against them. So why, why do you think they can do jack to help stop Riddle?"

Hermione stopped for a good thirty seconds before answering, "Harry, I'm sure they know what they're d-"

"Fuck this" said Harry, getting to his feet as Neville entered the common room, "hey Neville, you up for a duel before bed"

Neville nodded and the pair departed the room, leaving Ron and Hermione to return to their arguing.

* * *

"Everyone ready?" asked Harry as he stood by the statue of the one-eyed witch in his full battle armour: dozens of long, feather-light, damn-near indestructible, black scales which coated a Nundu-leather jumpsuit with a large black visored helmet to cover the head and various bits of extra plating over more vulnerable areas.

The rest of his group were dressed in almost identical suits, only red for Neville, yellow for Megan, blue for Luna and green for Lily. They'd needed different colours to differentiate themselves in the eyes of their fellow soldiers and had taken their house colours as everyone liked them, the only exception being Harry who wore black as it differentiated himself from Neville and represented his more stealthy role in the group.

Everyone nodded and Harry drew a hollow black rod from one of the folds in his armour which functioned as a pocket. He placed his wand in the centre of the rod then squeezed, causing it to elongate into a long glaive – effectively just a long stick with a sword on the end which, in his case, could work as an optimally functioning magical focus as it had his wand in it.

Harry waved the glaive at the statue and with the slight sound of stone scraping against itself, the statue sunk and the passage was revealed.

The group slid into the tunnel, drawing their weapons as they did – a sword for Neville, a nasty looking battleaxe for Megan, a rapier for Luna and a trident for Lily – while shields appeared on all of their left arms.

It took only a minute walking through the tunnel under Hogwarts for Luna to declare that they'd left the boundaries of the anti-disapparition wards around Hogwarts. After a few more steps to ensure the minimum chance of splinching, the group all connected hands and with a crack they disapparated to a path on a hill overlooking a small village.

"So this is the mighty village where Riddle's parents come from" announced Lily while staring down at the dull looking, rural village.

"Yep" answered Harry dully, scanning the area to get his bearings, "the shack should be somewhere that way" he said, pointing directly into a bush.

"Natura Moventur!" called Luna, jabbing her rapier towards the bushes which immediately parted, revealing the way to a very decrepit looking house. "There are wards around the house but they're very well hidden, despite not being that well-crafted. It looks like Riddle created them in his youth, using his excess power to make up for his lack of knowledge and experience at ward-crafting and has returned to fix the stealth effects on them since."

"And can you remove them?" asked Lily, pulling Luna out of her rambling.

"Oh, yes, I doubt any curse-breaker would have much difficulty as they were designed to be invisible to wizards and that means they had to be built with less raw strength. Having said that, I'm pretty sure there's a muggle blitz bomb connected to a magical trip wire in there to catch out wizards who don't know what muggle weapons are and I don't want to risk missing a purely non-magical trap."

"I can get into the place and I still have my emergency portkey which'll activate the moment something pierces my armour" stated Harry, "admittedly I don't particularly want to be port-keyed to the other side of the galaxy but if you can get the wards down I'll do the rest"

Luna nodded and threw up a ward around Riddle's wards to ensure that none of his alert wards could get a message out. Satisfied that no one could find out what they were doing, Luna carefully poked her rapier through the wards and started conjuring small amounts of Fiendfyre on the other side to wear away at the wards from the inside, there were no anti-dark magic wards as they'd negate the effects of the Horcrux and so the wards fell in a matter of moments.

The moment the wards finally faded from existence, a vast sea of a vaguely green gas burst forth from the shack and the group found themselves throwing bubblehead charms over their already masked heads without even considering it.

"Nundu toxins" called Neville, "I think we're immune even without the helmets but we should get rid of it in case it wipes out the village"

Without pausing to agree, the five of them immediately started using vacuuming and vanishing charms to eliminate the gas while Luna threw an extra ward around them to dilute toxins leaving the area.

A few moments later the gas was gone in its entirety and Harry turned again to the shack. "Inuisibilitas pallium!" muttered Harry and his personal invisibility cloak – which had been woven into his armour due to its unnatural effectiveness after removing the tracing charms on it – activated, rendering him invisible, even to his companions.

Choosing not to take the obvious route through the front door, Harry carefully levitated himself over the shack until he was floating just over its roof. Due to the many years of nature's abuse, several very large chunks of roof were missing and Harry slowly lowered himself through the second largest one until he was hovering just above the floor of the shack, not daring to touch the ground.

After a quick scan of the room, Harry discovered exactly what he was looking for: a small patch of the floor which, not only was emanating dark magic but also was clearly far cleaner and less damaged looking than the rest of the rotting floor suggesting it had been hit with a Reparo.

Harry slowly levitated over to the boards then cut a perfect circle in the floor with his glaive. He slowly levitated the circle of floor into the air, keeping it away from the rest of the potentially trapped shack walls and prodded open the small box in a hole under the floorboards.

It creaked slightly as it opened and revealed a small ring with an odd symbol on it. Not daring to lift the ring with his glaive, as it was one of the objects capable of destroying a Horcrux, Harry waved his glaive at the ring and it floated into the air and followed Harry out of the shack.

"You got it?" asked Luna as Harry dropped his invisibility.

"Here, it's got a compulsion charm to put it on though so there must be some kind of nasty curse hidden on it" said Harry, floating the ring between them.

"Yep, looks like a nasty corruption curse of some kind" said Luna, examining the ring by waving her rapier around it. "Mundabis illud deiectionem mundate! In purificationem eius annulum! Conteret corruptionem!"

There was a flash of light and Harry felt around 20% of the dark magic on the ring vanish. "Ok, ring cleared" said Luna cheerily before placing the tip of her rapier on the stone in the ring. "This stone came into existence in… 1943. It looks like it's designed to imitate the effects of the resurrection stone and make apparitions appear to try and persuade the user to kill themselves. I guess Riddle must've made the fake and placed the original elsewhere. The ring is the 25% Horcrux though."

"Good, shall we go then?" asked Neville.

"I think we should check the prophecy first" suggested Harry, "we only know the end of it and it could be important"

"Good idea" agreed Neville, "I guess that'll be a stealth mission so me and Meg'll take back the ring while you deal with it. Oh and as it's past midnight we've only got five days until the ritual so we'll need a plan"

"I've got the basics down, we can talk about it when we get back" said Harry, "meet us in the come and go room in a couple of hours, oh and if we're not there, please don't storm the Ministry in an attempt to find us"

"Aww" murmured Neville, "and I was so looking forward to butchering the Auror department"

Harry casually rolled his eyes, "see ya." Grabbing Luna and Lily by their heavily armoured waists, Harry disapparated away.

* * *

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business" asked the cool female voice as Harry, Luna and Lily arrived in the visitor's entrance to the Ministry of Magic.

"Boggis, Bunce and Bean" called Luna, "we're here to talk to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures about a dangerous fox"

Despite the ludicrous nature of the request, three pins were dispensed by the phone box and Luna explained "the charm isn't designed to detect truth from lies or valid reasons to enter from invalid ones. You could say you were here to attack the Ministry and the box wouldn't care, we just need to give a lie so it won't record that we were here, on the other hand the Security Desk does care who we are so we should probably disillusion ourselves"

Three invisible figures stepped from the box, drawing some odd looks given the box had appeared to arrive empty. After silently passing through the atrium, the trio slipped into a lift then magically rendered themselves incoporiel and floated down through the bottom of the lift and straight down the lift shaft.

Stopping at level nine, the three flew through the lift wall and landed on the other side. They passed through the corridor and Lily stood guard outside the door to the Department of Mysteries while Harry and Luna pushed the door open and stepped in.

They stepped into a circular room with a dark marble floor that looked almost like water, candles emitting a cool blue light and twelve handleless doors. A moment later, the silence was broken as the walls began to rotate.

"Which way do we go?" asked Harry once the walls stopped moving.

"I can't tell from the wards," admited Luna, "I know that's the exit because the room opens the exit if you ask it to and I know that's not the right door because it's got extraudinary protections on it, which they wouldn't use to protect prophercies as they're already protected by the curse on them. I think our best bet it to try and detect the Order member protecting it. Homenum Revelio Maxima!" Nothing seemed to happen for a few moments until Luna pointed at one of the non-descript doors, saying "that way"

The pair entered the room and Luna waited by the door while Harry activated his full invisibility – with his invisibility cloak – and crept towards where he could see Tonks, hidden under an invisibility cloak.

Finally reaching Tonks, making less sound than the quietest cat, Harry very carefully placed his glaive a milimeter from Tonks' face before casting a silent stunning spell on her.

Leaving her unconscious on the ground, Harry checked the area and drew a prophercy labeled _S.P.T to A.P.W.B.D, Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter_. Harry plucked the orb from its stand and shattered it.

Immediately, a ghostly voice called "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

Harry let out a long whistle while vanishing the remains of the prophercy and conjuring an orb which looked identical but contained no prophercy. Placing the new orb onto the rack, Harry waved his wand over it, muttering a long series of spells to ensure that anyone – including Riddle – touching it would cause it to strike them with a killing curse, violently explode and shoot Fiendfyre at the taker.

Finished, Harry rennervated Tonks and snuck out of the department, taking Luna and Lily with him.


End file.
